


Renegade's Legacy: Carry On, Wayward Sons

by reddawnrumble



Series: Renegade's Legacy 'Verse [12]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-22
Updated: 2012-10-22
Packaged: 2017-11-16 20:15:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 10
Words: 42,816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/543400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reddawnrumble/pseuds/reddawnrumble
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the loss of their guardian angel, Sam and Dean are on the run from a hit put out by Kaila: a hit that puts every hunter in the States on their tails. In the meantime, they're closing in on the Mohera. But the Mohera is stepping up its soul-feeding frenzy, too, and the casualty list is growing. Victory over the creature from Purgatory may mean teaming up with old enemies and new friends alike - and it may mean, for Sam and Dean Winchester, a great and terrible sacrifice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

_June 17 th, 2012_

_Outside of Grand Junction, Colorado_

It was all screaming tires, fire, and blood.

            Sam’s ankle wrenched, pushing the gas pedal flush up to the floor of the car. His one-handed feel on the steering wheel—all that was keeping the Impala from veering into the opposite lane. His other hand pressed over Dean’s, pressed over the gaping gunshot wound in his shoulder.

            “Hold on, man, just hold on.” Sam’s desperate, smoke-choked voice didn’t, _couldn’t_ , offer much comfort.

            In the rearview mirror, flames twisted like dragons into the sky, racing each other up the dry tinder of what had been Sam and Dean’s home for the past three-and-a-half days. Stupid, stupid, amateur move; they should’ve known better than to stay in one place that long. Especially _now_.

            Dean was hunched over, his forehead almost on his knees. Blood had completely ruined the sleeve of his leather jacket. A long, low sound, halfway to a sob, escaped from between his clenched teeth, punching into Sam’s chest. He slid his hand down, to Dean’s head, steadying him.

            “Just hold on.” He repeated. “I’ll get you to a hospital.”

            “No.” Dean moaned. “No hospital, Sam.”

            “Dean, he nailed you. You could bleed out.”

            “Just…stitch it up when we stop.”

            Sam grimaced; they were running.

            They weren’t going to stop anytime soon.

 

 

One Hour Earlier

 

 

            Sam hated the house they were squatting in.

            Tucked away in the ridges of the Rocky Mountains, it was miserably decrepit, if not on the verge of collapse. The only reason Dean had chosen it: it was so far off the beaten path, they weren’t likely to be bothered. Which meant hours uninterrupted inside mountains of lore books scrounged from God-knew-where.

            At least, that was Sam’s job.

            More often than not these days, Dean had himself locked in the attic of the house; or, before that, he’d stayed planted to his grungy bed in whatever motel they sacked in for the night; or he let Sam drive, and stayed on the laptop. Always, on the laptop; always searching. No more beers, no more women, no more chasing normal cases. They’d passed up on a wraith, two vengeful spirits and a Crocotta in the past month. Sam knew what Dean was doing.

            Hunting Kaila.

            Looking for John.

            But even knowing, now, that Kaila was the one they’d been searching for, for months—since Palo Alto, the night she’d killed Jesse Turner in cold blood—and knowing for sure that she was back in the United States, didn’t make finding her any easier. She kept her head below the radar, better than Sam and Dean ever had; better than anyone in the business, except, maybe, for John Winchester.

            Sam hated that a part of him blamed her resourcefulness on the Shifter she’d incorporated by force into her anti-monster battalion.

            But that was the whole point of everything that Sam and Dean were doing now, abandoning jobs that would’ve normally had them driving cross-country, eighty-five miles an hour on backroads that didn’t seem to lead anywhere, to Podunk towns that lived and breathed backwater lore. Places where stories told on grandma’s front porch on a breezy summer day, could just as easily crawl out from under your bed in the middle of the night.

            For now, that life wasn’t their life; because John, the Shapeshifter who’d taken on their father’s face going on seven years ago, was still in Kaila’s hands, still stranded on the front lines. And they’d made it their singular mission to get him back.

            Easier said than done.

            Sam palmed down the newspaper he’d been flipping through, leaning his chair back on two legs and watching Dean; separated from him by the length of the dusty table and half a dozen precarious stacks of lore books, he might as well have been in another world. More and more, it felt like he was; like there was a chasm between them. For once, not created by their clashing personalities or the mistakes they’d made.

            Sam curled his hand into a fist on top of the newspaper.

            He could still remember the feeling of warm blood soaking his hands, the heat of it spreading across his knees. Would never forget, with that gut-swooping, cold-throated hum of steady grief, watching the light die from Castiel’s eyes.

            Castiel, the angel who, from the first day Sam had met him, had always seemed just one step shy of invincible. Even crippled by the affects of a Horseman’s power, Castiel had remained, as a whole, strong, detached, but loyal almost to a fault. All of the qualities Heaven lacked in places, and needed.

            Gone.

            Sam hadn’t asked Dean yet if Meg was dead, because he didn’t need to; his brother returning, soaked in blood that he didn’t seem to notice, carrying an archangel blade like it was nothing, like they hadn’t been looking for it on and off ever since Arco, Idaho, a few months before—it was classic Dean. Running from something with silence, digging holes inside himself to bury the dead.

            Burying while they burned.

            Sam cleared his throat. “Find anything?”

            “Yeah, maybe.” Dean mumbled, his fingers floating across the keyboard. “String of disappearances up in Oregon. Near Baker City. So far, no suspects, no leads.” Dean shut the laptop and tilted his hand in a There-You-Go gesture. “Could have something to do with Kaila. The bitch breathes, people go missing. She’s gotta be recruiting more monsters for her army.”

            “It’s definitely worth looking into, either way.” Sam agreed. “I’m a little more worried about the Mohera, at this point.”

            Dean crossed his arms on top of the laptop. “You tracked it down?”

            Sam frowned, flipping the newspaper over and sliding it toward Dean. “Maybe. A lot of deaths up in northern Montana recently.  Bloodstains no one can explain. The same thing we saw in Japan.”

            “Kaila’s probably trying to stay one step ahead of it, since we’ve got this,” Dean picked the archangel blade up from the table and wagged it between two fingers, “And the Colt. We just gotta pick these _vultures_ off, one-by-one.”

            “Dean,” Sam started stacking the books, just to give his hands something to do. “It might not be that easy. And I think, deep down, you know that.”

            “What do you mean?”

            “I mean, we’ve been tracking Kaila for six weeks; ever since Japan. We’ve been hunting the Mohera for longer than that. And now we might have a lead on both of them?” Sam folded the newspaper in half and stretched his arms out on the table. “Maybe we should split up. One of us goes to Oregon, one of us goes to Montana.”

            “No.” Dean’s reply was quick and totally sure. “It’s not happening.”

            “Dean, come on…”

            “Sam, _no_. Not with your seizures, and not with the Mohera on the loose. You need someone watching your back.”

            “What, and you _don’t_?” Sam snapped.

            “I can take care of myself.”

            “Quit it with the ‘ _Strong and silent_ ’ attitude, Dean! It’s not helping.”

            “What do you want me to say, Sam? Hm? That I’m just _crying_ into my Cheerios every morning? That I can’t sleep because of my manly angst?” Dean pressed a dramatic hand to his chest, and this his face hardened. “Give it a rest.”

            Sam shot him a bitchfaced look, then grabbed the backpack off of the arm of his chair and headed for the stairs.

            “Where’re you going?” Dean was halfway out of his chair before Sam had taken two steps.

            “Upstairs. To change.”

            Sam made it to the landing on the top floor, his boots stirring up dust, before the tingling started at the base of his spine; he put his back to the wall and sank down with the backpack on his knees, burying his face in it and wrapping his hands around into the nylon straps.

            Life was chaos right now, nothing made sense, and along with Castiel’s memory, Dean was burying himself, and letting his anger take over again.

            Sam almost welcomed the memories of Hell.

            The absence seizure lasted longer than most; when Sam came to, he was curled on his side in the hallway, the backpack pinned under his arm; the first thing he noticed, that Dean wasn’t there. Which was strange in and of itself, because Sam being gone for more than ten minutes—and he could feel, already, that it had been longer than that—usually put Dean on the hint to come after him, to make sure he was all right.

            The second thing he noticed: the house smelled like smoke.

            Groggily, Sam sat up, pushing his backpack onto his shoulder again and taking the stairs down to the first floor, one step at a time, and every footfall feeling like a hammerstrike pounding up into his hips. He reached the bottom of the staircase and stopped dead in his tracks; halted by the sick, brutal sound of a fist meeting flesh.

            Sam shunted his back to the wall, leaning his head against the wood paneling, the sound driving home into his brain. It made him feel unbalanced, like he was walking inside his memories, inside of his nightmares, awake.

            “Where’s the other one, Winchester?”

            The voice was vaguely familiar; Sam tried to place it, wishing, almost viciously, that his brain didn’t feel so scrambled.

            “Who, Sammy?” Dean’s voice was thick, and Sam heard him spit. “Well, he’s not here. And that’s about all you’re getting outta me.”

            The beat of silence held a promise of retribution before that familiar-but-not familiar voice said, “Search the house.”

            Sam rocked his weight, settling himself, knowing someone would be coming around that corner, soon, and he’d have to take them down or more than likely he’d be in a world of pain. His firearm was still on the table, with the archangel blade, with _Dean_.

            So when the dark-skinned, curly-haired guy in lumberjack clothes stepped into the room, Sam moved on instinct alone; he snapped a kick into the outstretched arms that held a firearm taut, whipping the weapon up and off target. Sam followed it up by pulling the guy into a headlock and jamming them both back against the well, pinning him in a cradled hold until he passed out from oxygen loss.

            Sam scrambled, grabbed the gun and whipped himself around the corner.

            Straight into a face-off.

            Two guns, Sam’s against another man’s; and Dean in between them, in the guy’s iron grip, with the muzzle tapping between Sam’s face and the side of his head.

            Sam went completely still.

            He knew the man who was holding Dean.

            “Larry?” Sam’s aim stayed level, straight for the head; a kill shot, but with consequence. “Larry Monroe. You’re Bobby Singer’s friend.”

            “Hiya, Sam.” Larry’s voice shook just a little bit. “Sorry about all this. But I’m gonna have to ask you to put the gun down, son.”

            “Don’t do it, Sam!” Dean ordered, and leaned his head sideways when the muzzle of the gun pressed into his hair.

            Sam’s sights listed. “Larry, come on, man. Is this a joke? We’re both hunters, here. What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

            “Hunters. Right.” Larry snorted. “This is what has to be done. And I’m sorry you boys are caught in the crosshairs—really, I am. You’re decent people. At least, to each other. But a job’s a job.”

            Sam saw Larry’s finger tighten on the trigger.

            Two simultaneous gunshots punched out loud, rattling the fragile glass on the windows. Sam’s hit first; Larry’s, second.

            Both Larry and Dean dropped to the floor.

            Sam threw the firearm skidding and ran to his brother, hauling Dean up with one hand on his back and one across his chest, gripping the front of his shirt. Dean’s upper arm was saturated with blood; almost the same spot where he’d been shot when a Draugr possessed his body. His head rolled down, his hand gripping the bleeding gunshot wound. Sam moved to staunch the bleeding, then hesitated.

            The smoky smell was getting stronger, coming from outside.

            One look toward the doorway showed Sam the flames licking through the bushes and up toward the porch.

            Those idiots had lit the outside of the house on fire.

            “C’mon, I’ve got you. Dean, come on.” Sam hefted Dean to his feet, keeping one arm around him while he reached back and grabbed the archangel blade off the table. It was all he had a free hand for; that, and Dean. No time to grab the laptop, no time to find their duffle bags. The dry, hot wood of the house caught like tinder and the canyon-deep, achingly well-known and visceral fear of fire pounded through Sam’s veins.

            They stumbled down the front path, through a garden of thigh-high weeds toward the gravel driveway, where the Impala was parked gleaming in the sun. Sam popped the shotgun door and lowered Dean inside, nudging his brother’s legs into the stoop under the dashboard and closing the door.

            By the time Sam turned back toward the house, it was already roaring, a brilliant blast of heat on a warm June night. Sam stared, feeling the flames reflecting on his face, against his eyes.

            All of their clothes; some of their weapons. His laptop, both duffle bags. Which meant more than half of their worldly possessions, gone, swallowed up.

            In less than a minute.

            Including, Sam realized, his laptop bag; with the engagement ring he’d bought Jessica, still inside.

            “Sam, come on!” Dean bit out from the front seat; Sam back-stepped, feeling behind him for the door, shaking himself out of it finally when his hand met the handle. He climbed inside, jammed the keys into the ignition and gunned the engine, snaking the Impala down the wide, bendy trail back toward the asphalt throughway.

            Sam almost didn’t see the black truck; almost.

            It came screaming up on their right, dangerously close to broadsiding the Impala where the gravel road met the pavement. Sam spun the wheel left, fishtailing the car out of harm’s way, watching in the rearview mirror as the truck swerved wildly down the lane toward the house.

            They’d see the fire in a minute; and Sam had a feeling there would be payback to their names after that.

            He reached over, clamped his hand on Dean’s shoulder, and drove.

 

 

            Finding a motel was impossible; worse when Sam realized the first-aid kit had been in the house, and burned along with the rest of their belongings. Dean slid into fuzzy unconsciousness more than once as Sam pulled the Impala down from a headlong blazing fury and into a more permissible speed, the further they traveled from the house, and from the hunters who’d attacked them

            If Sam had a dollar for every time Dean asked him, in between bouts of shallow-breathing semi-delirium, if the Colt and the archangel blade were safe, they could’ve bought a new laptop.

            Finally, with nothing else to do, Sam pulled up at a small vet hospital outside of De Beque. He shucked off his jacket and wadded it against Dean’s damaged shoulder, then climbed out into a warm, sultry night.

            He broke one of the windows with his elbow, pulled himself over the glass-dusted windowsill, and made a quick sweep of the place. No alarms, no silent trips that he could find. It was a relatively small establishment; Sam unlocked the door from the inside and went back for Dean.

            His brother was pretty out of it, but seemed like he was trying to balance himself when Sam brought him inside and hauled him up sitting on the edge of one of the examination tables. Bracing Dean with his shoulder, Sam stripped off the ruined jacket and tossed it on the floor; the shirt quickly followed it, exposing the gaping hole and bruised, hot flesh around the wound.

            “Ugh,” Sam winced, scrunching his face. He put pressure on the wound again, turning his attention to Dean’s face. “Dean. Hey, man, I need your help.”

            Dean’s head was tucked down, but he muttered, “’M’awake.”

            “Good.” Sam said, relieved. “Stay sitting up, and hold this in place for me.”

            A bottle of antiseptic, a roll of sutures and a sewing needle; all locked in a case. Easy enough to pick the lock. Sam returned with the supplies and got started.

            Once he flushed the wound out, it was easy to see the brachial artery hadn’t been compromised; the wound was clean, through-and-through, had scooped out a lot of skin and bled a lot but wasn’t fatal. Sam didn’t let himself think what would’ve happen if he hadn’t shot Larry when he did, jerking his aim off and twisting Dean’s body; the bullet could’ve gone straight through Dean’s arm and into his side instead.

            By the time Sam had the wound cleaned and both sides of his arm stitched, Dean was a little more lucid, shivering shirtless on the cold exam table with nothing but his amulet on. Sam swept the dirty instruments into a tray and picked up a spool of bandages, wrapping the top of Dean’s arm in one thick swathe.

            “I need to clean this up,” Sam gestured to the bloodstains on the floor and the needle and thread he’d used. “You good?”

            “I’ll live.” Dean mumbled.

            That was a good thing.

            When Sam returned, re-sterilized needle and wet mop in hand, Dean was trying to pull his shirt back on. Sam stopped him. “You need something clean.”

            “This’ll work.” Dean sounded nine kinds of cranky.

            “Dean. No, it won’t. That thing’s filthy. You don’t want to get an infection.” Sam pulled off his shirt and traded it, slipping on just his jacket and zipping it up.

            “Man, I hate wearing your stuff.” Dean complained, dragging the shirt on over his head. Sam ignored him, rolling up the ruined shirt; they had no choice but to keep it until they could find a place to dump or burn it. For half a second, he thought about throwing out the leather jacket with it; then decided he’d rather not be on Dean’s hit-list for disposing of something that had belonged to their dad. He wiped the blood off the ripped sleeve and stuffed it into his backpack instead.

            Dean mashed the heel of his hand against his eye. “The whole room’s spinning.”

            “You lost a lot of blood.” Sam replied. “Give me a second, I’ll be right back.”

            For once, their luck held out; Sam found an unopened bottle of Gatorade in the employee’s lounge in the back. Dean swished it down while Sam mopped up the bloodstains on the floor and locked the antiseptic, needle and gauze in the cabinet again.

            “Treated at a vet clinic,” Dean commented when he’d finished off the Gatorade. “Drinking Smurf piss out of a bottle. This has gotta be an all-time low for us, Sam.”

            Sam hooked his foot around a rolling chair in the corner and shoved it toward the exam table, sinking into it. “Nah.”

            “Really? Name worse. Name one time we’ve had to do something like this.”

            “Plenty of times!” Sam protested, and Dean raised an eyebrow. “Just give me a second to remember when.”

            “That’s what I thought.” Dean moved like he was going to chuck the Gatorade into the trash can, then stopped and set it on the exam table beside him. “So. Larry Monroe, huh?”

            “Yeah.” Sam rubbed his forehead. “And the other hunter must’ve been Jack Cosgrove. They were always teaming up together when they came by Bobby’s place, remember?”

            “Yeah, I remember. I remember them giving us popsicles when we were kids.” Dean scowled. “What the hell were they doing, trying to waste _us_?”

            Sam shrugged. “Possessed, maybe?”

            “No, I threw holy water at ’em when they came in. Didn’t do anything.”

            “Shapeshifters?”

            “Larry’s gun was silver-plated, same as mine. To keep those kinds’a fugly things from lifting a weapon off of us.”

            “So, it was them.” Sam frowned. “Totally them?”

            “Looks like it.”

            “But why?” Sam tossed his hair out of his eyes. “And what did Larry mean when he called it a _job_?”

            “One person oughta know the answer to both those questions.” Dean said.

            Sam didn’t have to ask, already fishing out his phone. “I’ll call Bobby.”

            About the time the phone started ringing, some dog in a back kennel woke up yelping; Sam saw the annoyance pull across Dean’s face, felt bad because he _knew_ , ever since the Hellhound ordeal, how much Dean hated dogs. Not just big, iron-jawed attack dogs, but little yappy ones, too.

            The line clicked to life. “Y’ello?”

            “Bobby? It’s Sam.”

            Sam heard something that sounded like meat pan-searing in the background. “I ain’t dug up anything new, if that’s why you’re callin’ me.”

            “Actually, no, it’s something else.” Sam slid a look toward Dean. “Have you talked to Larry Monroe lately?”

            “Not in the last six, eight months.” Bobby replied. “Sam, what is that _crazy_ racket in the background?”

            “Uh, sorry,” Sam winced. “We’re in an animal hospital.”

            “ _Animal hospital_?” Bobby echoed severely. “What, your brother get turned into a Great Dane?”

            “No, Dean’s fine.” Sam cocked his head. “Relatively speaking.”

            “You wanna tell me what this is about?”

            Sam put the phone on speaker and set it on the cart, nodding to Dean.

            Dean leaned his injured arm across his knees. “Any idea why Larry Monroe would want to gank me and Sam?”

            “He did _what_?” There was a clattering sound in the background, like Bobby had dropped a spatula. “You’re _kiddin’_ me!”

            “No, you better believe it. Him and Jack, showed up with a couple’a pieces and tried to kill us.” Dean said flatly. “Before you ask, we did the whole drill: holy water, they had silver on ’em.”

            “So you’re sayin’ they just showed up outta the blue and—?”

            “ _Yes_ , Bobby. Yes, your frat pals tried to kill us. I wanna know if _you_ know anything about it.”

            “It don’t make a lick’a sense.” Bobby protested—then got quiet. Way too quiet, way too fast.

            Sam met Dean’s eyes over the phone, quickly, then leaned his elbows on his knees. “Bobby?”

            “Aw, hell.” Bobby groaned.

            “What?” Dean demanded.

            “’Bout a week ago, I got a call from a guy I ran with out in Wichita, in ninety-one. Said he’d heard about a job broadcastin’ to every hunter. People that needed to be taken care of, and I don’t mean put in a nursing home.”

            “Wasted.” Dean said bluntly.

            “Told ’im I was a hunter, I wasn’t a murderer and if I ever heard from him again, I’d call the cops on his ass.”

            “And you didn’t ask him who the hit was on?” Sam asked.

            “I didn’t wanna know.”

            “Well, that’s great, Bobby, ’cause I’m pretty sure it’s _our_ names in the killpool.” Dean palmed a hand back through his hair.

            Sam frowned. “But who would—?” He sat back, realization crashing like an icy wave over his shoulders. “Kaila.”

            “She knows you boys are a real threat to her, with what she’s up to.” Bobby agreed. “Wouldn’t surprise me if she fabricated some story to get the other hunters on your tail.”

            Dean sat back, clapping a hand on his knee. “Well, great. That means no credit cards, no more hustling pool—”

            “Nothing they can use to track us.”  Sam’s brain was already scrambling, wondering how they could recoup their losses, if they couldn’t fall back on their usual methods of income.

            “You boys better watch your backs, be extra kinds of careful.” Bobby warned. “You don’t got an archangel with the mojo to hide you from a pack’a human bloodhounds anymore.”

            “ _Ya think_?” Dean snarled, and Sam blinked, watching the furious stare Dean pinned on the wall, not looking him, or at the phone that had gone quiet.

            “I’ll call ya if I find anything.” Bobby said, and then the line went dead.

            “Dean.” Sam slid the phone back into his pocket. “Bobby’s just trying to help.”

            “No shit, Sherlock.” Dean turned his vitriol on Sam, and the glare to match it. Sam just waited, knowing by now that the reality behind Dean’s mood would unveil itself if he kept his temper in check and didn’t bite back. After a few seconds, Dean reached up and massaged the bandage on his arm. “This whole thing’s backsliding fast, Sam.”

            “I know.” Sam clasped his hands loosely and hung them between his knees. “So? What’s next?”

            “If Kaila wants us dead? I say we give her a taste of her own medicine. If we can’t kill the whole Hydra, let’s start lopping off heads.” Keeping his arm pinned closed to his ribs, Dean hopped off the table. “Take the fight to her, and figure this out our own damn selves.”

            Sam half-smiled. “Sounds good.”


	2. Chapter 2

_June 19 th, 2012_

_The Rusty Hammer, Portsmouth, New Hampshire_

It started, and ended, in a bar in New Hampshire.

            The whole thing was Dean’s idea, so he’d take all the credit if it actually pulled off; or, worst case scenario, Sam would be chasing him through Heaven or Hell with a bloody axe in the next forty-eight hours.

            The tracking part, easier said than done; sans one really well-equipped laptop, they’d had no choice but to call Bobby and ask him to put out a trace on two hunters in particular who Dean knew would be gunning for their blood next: Reggie Hull and Tim Janklow. Knew it, because these asshats had tried to scapegoat Sam using demon blood right after they’d popped Lucifer out of the box.

            Talk about an awkward conversation; Bobby’d been pissed, and that was being generous about it. But Sam had pulled out the over-the-phone, begging-eyes thing and Bobby had caved. Always did give Sam almost anything he wanted.

            And that was how they’d ended up at the Rusty Hammer, tucked in at a smaller table in the corner with a basket of hot wings between them and their eyes on the bar counter.

            Dean wasn’t hungry; couldn’t remember the last time he’d _been_ hungry; weeks ago, probably. Between Sam’s seizures, John still being MIA and now Castiel kicking the bucket, Dean had too much on his hands to even sleep. Running on, if he was lucky, two or three hours every other day.

            He felt hollow; empty, like somebody had kicked his guts out. Sex couldn’t fix it, he’d tried. Hunting, didn’t do much good. Even being around Sam was wearing him down, what with keeping an eye on his brother and trying to ignore the fact that Sam was getting sicker and sicker, more seizures, more pain, and Dean didn’t have a way to piece his broken head back together again. Nothing he could do to help; same way he hadn’t been able to stop John from being monster-napped, same way he hadn’t been able to save Castiel.

            Couldn’t find Kaila, either.

            “Dean.” Sam’s voice broke into the circles his brain was running. “Relax.”

            Dean realized he was fisting his hand around his pilsner so hard it was about to bust. He loosened up his fingers one at a time and rolled the stiffness from his shoulders, narrowing his eyes down on the bar counter.

            Dumb and Dumber were still there, drowning down in whiskey and their sorrows. Not that either of them had a lot to be emoting about; wasn’t like they’d been to Hell. Hadn’t lost _everything_. Hell, they’d survived the Apocalypse without a scratch, looked like, and Dean had been sitting here listening to them bitch and complain about their lives for the last half hour, to a bartender who looked like he was about ready to gouge these schmucks’ eyes out.

            “What a joke,” Dean spat under his breath, taking down a convulsive swallow of beer. It was pretty weak, didn’t even rub on the way down.

            “They’re not a joke, Dean. These guys meant business before, and they probably still want me dead.” Sam sounded twitchy, _was_ twitching, fidgeting around in his seat like he had itching powder in his pants.

            Dean recognized the look on his face, though; tense, like someone had pulled his skin tight and let his cheekbones cut through.

            Right. ’Cause the last time Sam had faced these chuckleheads, he’d ended up with a mouthful of demon blood and almost had an innocent girl’s death on his conscience. Like he wasn’t already getting dragged down enough, even back then; it’d taken him a couple weeks to come clean with Dean about what’d happened, or almost happened, ’cause he’d been too embarrassed and ashamed to talk about it sooner.

            Dean slid a glance toward Sam and felt a twinge of guilt that he wrestled down.

            Hull and Janklow picked that point to shut up and move along, tossing a couple bills onto the counter before they scrammed. Dean met Sam’s eyes across the table, and Sam kicked his chair back and got to his feet; if Dean was pissed, Sam was working himself up toward bull-in-a-china-shop. Heads were gonna roll.

            Dean swirled back the rest of his beer, banged the pilsner down on the table and flipped a ten onto the table before following his brother outside.

            They’d parked the Impala in the back lot of the Rusty Hammer and drawn every anti-monster, anti-demon and anti-evil-in-general ward that they had memorized, on the trunk, hood, doors and windows. The archangel blade and Colt in the trunk, inside a lockbox with a combination that nobody knew, except for Sam. And it had to be Sam, Dean had set it up that way, because if this deal went south he knew which one of them was coming home.

No idea when they’d be back, and no way they could leave the Impala out in the open for Reggie and Jack to get a sweep on her.

            Those two weren’t exactly being subtle; striding toward the denim-blue pickup in the parking lot that butted up against the edge of the bar, more or less yelling at each other, like they weren’t three feet apart.

            Dean went for his gun and Sam smacked him on the chest, warning him back. When Dean slowed up, Sam loped past him, arms spread wide.

            “ _Hey_!” He barked, in that You-Fellas-Pissed-Off-The-Wrong-Hunter voice. “I think I owe you guys a round of _beers_.”

            Dean smiled appreciatively. _Atta boy, Sam. Use that attitude_.

            Reggie swung around and Dean saw his mouth form a belated, _Oh, SHIT_ before Sam’s fist dislocated his jaw and he wasn’t gonna say much after that.

            Dean bolted into the fight the second Jack, six-foot-two-and-a-half of corded muscle, tried to get Sam in a headlock from behind. Dean took him down with a solid cut that bashed him to the pavement, and jumped past him, clumping up on the bulging nose of the truck and bending down with his hands on his knees:

            “ _Come and get me, big boy_!”

            Jack came up with a nosebleed and murder in his eyes, lunging blind for the truck. Dean kicked him square in the face, dropping him again, but Jack managed to get a hold on Dean’s ankle and drag him down, too.

            Dean’s tailbone crunched on the hood and threw daggers of pain up through his shoulderblades. He rolled off, smacking the asphalt and raising both arms to shield his face when Jack got on top of him and aimed a punch for his head. Dean kneed him off and switched their places, but he got distracted, like he always did, when he saw Sam and Reggie wrestling and Sam took a solid blow right to the solar plexus, knocking him winded on one knee.

            Dean figured it was about time to tighten up their game.

            He dug his heel into Jack’s throat and pounced off of him. “Sammy—!”

            Reggie twisted Sam into a headlock and pushed him to his knees, one hand knotting in Sam’s hair. Sam writhed in the guy’s hold, eyes on Dean.

            Dean froze, Reggie’s split-lip sneer drilling into him, and didn’t take his focus off of Sam. Didn’t let his expression change.

            Even when he winked, and tugged his mouth sideways.

            Sam’s nod could’ve been buried inside his struggling before he went limp, sagging in Reggie’s grip. Reggie dropped him like a hot-potato and Sam slumped over on the asphalt, his hair dragging across his face.

            Dean felt a real, alive lurch of fury in his gut, something that wasn’t half-dead and half-numb, for the first time in weeks. His gaze snapped to Reggie’s face. “You’re next, chuckles.”

            Something hard and really, really heavy smacked the back of Dean’s head, splitting his vision nine different ways before he hit the ground, out like a light.

 

 

            He was seeing stars.

            Not the whack-on-the-skull, dizzy-swirl stars, but a whole plane of them, spread across the night sky above him. Cut through by trees flashing past; heading down a back road, just like always. Except this time, Dean wasn’t the pilot.

            His brain oriented itself to realizing he was in the flat bed of the pickup truck, Reggie’s and Jack’s, his arms and legs tied, caterpillar-curled on his side and half-twisted-over, looking up. Every time the tires hit a pot-hole, the goose egg on the back of his head smacked the ribbed bottom of the truck.

            Dean squirmed and flipped around. “Sam?”

            “Right here.” Sam sounded calm, alert and totally awake, like maybe he’d been sitting there waiting for Dean to wake up for a while. Score one for the team. “Did they search you?”

            Dean shifted his arms and legs, rubbed his bound wrists against the small of his back. “Yup. You?”

            Sam chuckled fiercely. “They didn’t take my necklace.”

            Dean relaxed, rolling his head into a groove in the truck bed. “Y’know this is a total crapshoot, right?”

            “It was your idea.”

            “I know, s’my point.” Dean cleared his throat. “You really think Kaila’s out here, that they’re gonna take us straight to her? I mean, it can’t be _that_ easy.”

            “It never is.” Sam sighed. “Let’s just see what happens, Dean, all right?”

            “Man, I want this broad dead.” Dean said under his breath. He let his eyes slide shut—and flip open just as fast when the darkness inside his head showed him Castiel bleeding out in the street all over again.

            Sam wriggled around, curling himself up against the side of the truck. “Dean.”

            Oh, crap, he knew _that_ tone. Dean swiveled eyes onto his brother and saw the bright wash of moonlight picking up the highlights of the sweat on Sam’s creased forehead. Dean wanted to smash his fist into the bed of the truck.

            “I’m right here, Sam. I’ll be here when it’s over.”

            Sam nodded, like that was all he needed, and then Dean _saw_ him drop out, saw Sam’s eyes slide outta focus while his brain went screaming backwards, Hell or High-water, Dean wasn’t sure, and it didn’t matter. Sam was still trapped, one way or another. And Dean was stuck out here, couldn’t do anything to help.

            One-track mind.

            The truck skidded sideways, spraying gravel, and stopped.

            And that was where things started coming unglued.

            Sam was still bundled over, head down, coming out of the seizure when the doors on the truck slammed and footsteps munched their way toward the tailgate. Dean flipped over, trying to sit up, make himself a bigger target to keep their focus off Sam.

            Had to face the cold-hard truth: he never made a bigger target. Nasty stuff, supernatural, totally natural, totally screwed-up, always went for Sam first. So Dean had to watch them grab Sam and drag him out and drop him on the ground; watch Sam’s face, watch his brain put two-and-two together and probably figure, _this is still Hell_.

            “Sam! Sammy. Look at me.” Dean spat under his breath; Jack grabbed the back of Dean’s neck and hauled him out, belly-flopping him on the gravel driveway. Dean rolled over, found Sam’s dazed eyes in the darkness and held on. “Right here, Sammy. You with me?”

            Sam nodded, his listless gaze scrolling sideways.

            Not good. Dean needed him sharp for this.

            Reggie knelt and there was a flash of silver at ground level and Dean had a second to think, _if that blond-haired son of a bitch cuts Sam, this is war_ , before the knife sawed through the ropes around Sam’s ankles. Reggie tossed the knife and Jack did the same for Dean; hauled him to his feet and marched him toward the house.

            It barely passed for a house; more like a hunter’s cabin. A normal, sane hunter, not a crazy ghost-facing, demon-chasing hunter. There was even a rocking chair on the front porch, smoke coming outta the chimney, the whole nine yards. Place woulda been cozy, if they weren’t getting dragged into it hands-bound and knowing what was waiting for them inside.

            The cabin was one room, fireplace in the back, table shoved into a corner, cot on the wall. Pretty much, one step up from a shack. Dean blinked to get a better view, the wood burning in the fireplace throwing long shadows up across the walls—and blinked, his muscles wiring tight.

            The person standing by the fireplace, back-on to them; _not_ Kaila. Dean’s height, thick-bodied, definitely a guy, definitely not her. Dean swallowed down a sour rush of disappointment; he hadn’t really expected it to be that easy, but, still. Didn’t help with the itch to get his fingers around her throat and strangle the life out of her.

            And then the guy turned around, and Dean caught a faceful of righteous hatred.

            Marik rubbed the side of his neck. “Well, I can’t say I was expecting to see you two in town.” He jerked his chin at Reggie and Jack. “Grab the chairs, truss ’em up.”

            The next thing Dean knew he was pretty much shoved sitting on top of Sam in a corner while Tweedledee and Tweedledum swung the chairs into the middle of the room. Dean struggled against the ropes they looped around him, tried flexing his arms out to give himself some slack; earned a punch to the chest that knocked the wind out of him, and that was the end of _that_.

            “Give us a minute.” Marik nodded to Reggie and Jack and that was their invitation to skip town. They did, pretty fast, so Dean figured the reward wasn’t coming until him and Sam were minus one head each.

            Not like they were gonna make it that easy.

            “Long time no see, old man.” Dean drawled. “What’s it been, two months? Man, you guys are slippery, I gotta give ya that.”

            Marik bent down and snagged Dean’s chin in one hand, studying him in a way that gave Dean the creepy-crawlies. “It’s also a possibility that you’re a piss-poor excuse for a hunter.”

            “No, it’s not that.” Sam sounded a little breathless, a little shaky, but at least his head was circling back into the game. “You were gone. Missing. Out at sea for _weeks_ , and we couldn’t catch a trace of you.”

            “Yeah, how’d that work out for you, by the way?” Dean’s voice came out garbled thanks to that massive hand on his chin.

            “It was cold and wet and the whole ship smelled like a horse’s ass.” Marik shoved Dean’s head down and stepped back. “Coming to New Hampshire was an awfully big slip-up for the pair of you, I gotta say.”

            “Yeah, we got the boss-lady’s message out in Colorado.” Dean rolled the stiffness from his neck. “Helluva time. Who was in the black pickup that almost clocked my baby, by the way? I owe somebody some payback.”

            Marik’s lip curled. “Walt and Roy.”

            Dean felt a torque of fury crushing up under his ribs. He rocked his head sideways, sweeping his gaze up the wall and along the rafters. “God, I shoulda wasted those two after Joshua sent us back.”

            “Missed opportunities. Everyone has ’em.” Marik bent down on Dean’s level, his expression condescending. “You know why you’re here, don’t you?”

            “Kaila put a price on our heads.” Sam answered, staring straight at the fireplace; back straight, shoulders up. Winchester proud, and still pissed. “Reggie and Jack wanted whatever she’s offering, so they drove us out here.” His voice was getting louder, ratcheting up on the scale of just how _pissed_ he really was. “We left the bar, drove for two minutes, turned right; drove another five minutes, turned right again. We crossed a bridge, over water, on a highway. Went left. We were on that driveway for five minutes.” He picked his head up and glared at Marik. “Piss-poor excuse for a hunter? Guess again.”

            Marik raised an eyebrow and turned away.

 _Show off_ , Dean mouthed.

Sam shot him a bitchface.

“Not bad, Sam.” Marik crossed the room, giving the flaming logs in the fireplace a few pokes; if he was trying to build suspense, it didn’t work so well. Dean watched Sam out of the corner of his eye; watched him tuck his chin down, fish up the cheap dogtag cord they’d bought from a pet-tag vending machine and start bunching it into his mouth, working his way down toward the necklace. “But I knew _you_ were competent at your job. Remember Essex?”

“You mean the time you let your Draugr possess Dean?” Sam’s voice was a little muffled but he was handling it pretty well, all things considered. He looped the end of the necklace into his mouth and bit down hard, snapping the connector that held the halves together. He twisted around, spat the necklace into his hand and tipped it down into his hands.

Dean’s turn.

“Yeah, Essex was hilarious. Can’t believe you sank down this far after all that. Pretty sad.” Dean didn’t move his periphs off of Sam.

“You really don’t get it, do you?” Marik rested his hand on the hearth and leaned over the fireplace; Dean really wished he could punt the guy’s ass and knock him straight into the flames.

“Oh, God, here we go.’ Dean intoned to Sam. “Cue the monologue. What are you gonna do, chuckles, try and talk us over to your side?”

“No.” Marik turned back to face them, aiming for Dean’s forehead with the pistol he’d grabbed off the hearth. “I don’t _want_ you on my side. Winchesters are a liability, sooner or later they bite you in the ass.”

“Well, I got news for you, pal.” Dean growled. “You’ve got a certifiable Winchester working for you. His name’s _John_ , and you bastards choke-collared him into the business. And you’d better believe, when we bust him out? He’s gonna be lookin’ for some serious payback. Right outta your ass.”

            Marik’s lips twisted in a flat, forced smile. “He won’t last that long. And on that subject, neither will you.”

            His finger tightened on the trigger.

            Sam lunged to his feet, spinning the chair around and breaking it over Marik’s head. The muzzle of the gun snapped down, firing into the floor near Dean’s feet. Which he was pretty thankful for; getting shot twice in two days would’ve been a record even for him, and he’d been breaking records since he was four.

            Marik turned on Sam and got a fistful of Sam’s rage, slamming him up against the wall. He dropped with his brains scrambled, and Sam moved back toward Dean, sawing at the ties on his wrists.

            “Nice hit,” Dean commented, stripping off the ropes around his upper body as soon as his hands were free. A shadow zipped into his line of sight. “Sam, watch it!”  
            Too late; Sam smacked the floor face first with Reggie pinning him down.

            And Dean snapped; something huge and ugly he’d been shoving into the back of his head for the past month just belched out of his system in one flow. He tackled Reggie onto the floor, straddled him and laid into the guy’s face with his fists. Mashing him with blows until pain raced up his arm because this _son of a bitch_ was in bed with the people who’d started all of this. If it hadn’t been for him, for _them_ , Jesse, John, Rufus, Castiel—none of it would’ve happened.

            Definitely wasn’t rational, definitely didn’t solve anything, but Dean didn’t let up until he felt a hand grab his arm, Sam’s voice stabbing through the red haze of rage that was fogging the inside of his head.

            “Dean—dammit, stop! He’s dead!”

            That stopped him, finally; and Dean got a good look at the guy.

 Reggie’s face was totally mangled, tipped over against the floor. Bleeding out of all the cracks made by Dean’s knuckles, by the ring on his finger.

            The hollowness yawned up, trying to swallow Dean whole.

            Sam let go of him, slumping onto his ass on the floor with his arms bracing his body. Dean looked up and saw Jack lying in the doorway, head bent at an awkward angle, limbs splayed. Neck snapped, no doubt about it. Marik was still out cold, wedged up against the wall. Wasn’t Dean’s biggest priority.

            Sam was shaking, his hands buried in his hair now. His Hell-vision, catching up to him.

            “Sam!” Dean snapped his fingers. “Focus. Look at me. You good?”

            Sam nodded, flopping chunks of hair into his face. “Yeah, I guess.”

            “Then grab the rope and tie up the lion tamer over there.” He jerked his head at Marik. “I’ll take care of these two.”

            Dean didn’t get much farther than dumping their bodies in the bushes before reality caught up him; reality telling him what had to come next. Like he didn’t have a choice. Or maybe he’d made the choice weeks ago, when he’d started sneaking out at night; when Sam finally flopped down on a bed—if they were lucky enough to land a motel room for the night—or, more often than not these days, curled up in the corner of some abandoned house. Sam slept and Dean worked, and that was it.

            Dean pulled his gun, butterfly knife and wallet off of Reggie, braced himself, and headed back inside.

            Sam had Marik strapped to the chair and coming around when Dean walked in; Dean flipped the knife open and nicked Marik’s arm on his way past. The guy flinched and Sam’s eyes tightened, easing up the dark circles underneath.

            “What was that for?”

            Dean ignored him and faced Marik, arms folded loosely. “We want answers. You’re the lucky guy who’s got ’em. So, are we gonna do this the easy way? Or the really hard way?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “Where’s Kaila?”

            Marik chuckled throatily. “You’re wasting your time.”

            “Oh, really. And why’s that?”

            “I have seen too many things over too many years to be scared by the Winchester Intimidation Act. It’s not gonna work on me.”

            Dean leaned his hands down on the arms of the chair, his head hovering a few inches above Marik’s. “How about this: I’ve lost a couple friends recently. Really _good_ friends. Thanks to your people. And I’m sick of running. I am _done,_ hiding. So either you tell us where that bitch is staking out, or we get down to interrogating. Smart guy like you probably knows what I’m capable of.”

            Sam smacked the back of Dean’s jacket. “We need to talk.”

            Dean pulled back, slowly, keeping his threatening stare pinned down on Marik. “We’re not done.”

            Sam rounded on Dean the second they stepped outside. “I thought we had a deal, Dean. No more of this torture crap!”

            “That was in Japan, Sam. That was before—”

            “Before _what_? Before Rufus? And Castiel?” Sam demanded, and Dean looked away, his tongue swiping his bottom lip. “Dean, they’re dead! All right? They are dead and there is _nothing_ we can do to bring them back. But that doesn’t mean we just give up and die, too!”

            “What, you think this is me giving up?”

            “Yeah, Dean, I do.” Sam said. “Because I know what this does to you, man.”

            “You don’t have any idea what I’ve done, Sam.” Dean warned him down with a Leave-It-Alone look and turned back toward the cabin.

            Sam cuffed his arm, stopping him. “We’re not doing this, Dean.”

            Dean shrugged him off. “If it bothers you, you can wait in the truck.”

            “Quit sidelining me!”

            Dean wheeled around to face him, pissed, and wrung out, and so sick and tired he literally felt like he was going to upchuck. “You remember back in Essex? The night we summoned Isabelle to her grave?”

            Sam arched one shoulder to his ear. “I guess?”

            “I’m sick’a _losing_ people, Sam. And yeah, you’re right. We can’t bring Rufus and Cass back. I _know_ that. But if we can find Kaila, we can still save John. Probably save Bobby, too, you know she’s gonna be after him, sooner or later.”

            Sam sighed and pulled his shoulders back. “Not like this, Dean. We can find another way.”

            “There is no other way.” Dean answered, and he hated that his voice stayed quiet, didn’t put a punch behind that. “Go wait in the truck.”

            But Sam didn’t; he followed Dean inside, ’cause that was Sam and maybe some part of Dean was glad to have him there, watching his back. Even if he hated Sam seeing him like this, almost as much as he’d hated seeing Sam forced to drink demon blood before he jumped in the pit.

            Marik was pulling on the ropes, rocking the chair from side to side. Probably, he’d heard part of their conversation and knew what was coming for him.

            Dean crouched in front of the chair, wagging the knife slowly back and forth. “So. You wanna tell me where she is?”

            Marik’s face wound tight in a snarl. “Go screw yourself.”

            Dean stabbed the tip of the butterfly knife under Marik’s fingernail, wrenching a whine of pain out of him that was so pathetic Dean almost felt sorry for him. For about a second. Then he tunneled it in deeper, and that whine notched up to a gagging sound.

            Sam cleared his throat, and Dean let his eyes slide shut, let himself bury the shame and rage in the darkness behind his eyes. “Sam, get out.”

            “No.” And Dean looked up just in time to see Sam fold himself into the corner and sink down with his wrists on his knees. “I’m staying.”

            Somehow, ended up sounding like, _I’m here_. Which meant a lot more than Dean had words or a name for.

            But the whole ordeal lasted until sunrise, and that wasn’t something Dean had planned for.

            Marik was a tough son of a gun, had years of training and didn’t break easy. Didn’t break at all. And by the time the horizon outside the cabin’s one window was streaked red-gold-pink, Dean was tired. If he’d felt wrung-out before, now he could barely _stand_.

            And it was like waking up; seeing this bleeding husk of a human being dipped over the chair, and Sam in the corner, dark circles under his eyes and one arm wrapped around both his knees.

            And Dean just stopped, because he didn’t even know what the hell he was doing.

            Dean flipped the butterfly knife closed, flecking Marik’s blood on his jeans, and walked over to Sam, crouching in front of him.

            “Sam, hey.” He shook his brother’s knee. “We’re done. I’ll meet you out in the truck. I just gotta finish something in here first.”

            Sam gave him a tired look through tired eyes and Dean knew he hadn’t fooled him. But Sam gave him the space, because he was Sam. Unfolded himself off the floor and weaved his way toward the door.

            Dean pulled out his gun on his way back to Marik, and leaned the guy’s head back by his throat until their eyes met.

            “Last chance,” Dean made the words a threat, a promise and an order.

            Marik spat in his face.

            And right then Dean knew: he’d callused his own soul for nothing, because Marik was one of the ones who would never talk.

            The ring of the gunfire rapped back against his ears when Dean double-tapped Marik, right in the temple. He holstered the gun and strode outside, ignoring Sam leaning against the truck, grabbed Reggie and Jack and hauled their bodies into the main room. Dean took one last sweep, and kicked one of the glowing logs onto the wooden floor.

            By the time Dean made it out the front door, the cabin was already choking smoke. Sam wordlessly held out the keys to the truck, he’d probably filched them off one of the dead bodies.

            Dean stuffed his hands in his pockets and turned away. “Hope you brought your walking shoes, Sam.”

            The fire burned higher behind them as they headed down the road, and the Winchesters added three more notches to the body count that was hanging over their heads.

 


	3. Chapter 3

_June 20 th, 2012_

_Dunes Motor Inn, Rye, New Hampshire_

 

Sam spent the afternoon throwing up.

            It took them an hour to walk back to the Rusty Hammer, and then they drove a few miles down the coast to a small town, and a small-town motel. Dean let Sam out, backed the Impala into the street and drove off. Sam didn’t know if he was going for food or just for a drive, just to clear his head, but whatever the case, it didn’t matter beyond a certain extent. Sam was alone, and that was what he needed, more than anything.

            He bought the motel room with the last fifty dollars in his back pocket and the knowledge that they didn’t even have enough gas to get them south of anywhere. He let himself into the room, shucked his jacket off, walked into the bathroom and dropped to his knees beside the toilet bowl, purging his stomach into it.

            That went on for two hours, off and on; when he wasn’t retching up food, water and stomach acid, he wedged himself into the space between the toilet and the bathtub and rested his head on his arm, his disheveled mop of hair reducing the glare from the bathroom light. He’d lay like that for fifteen, twenty minutes until the viral surge started again, and he’d lurch up just in time to dispel into the toilet bowl again.

            He didn’t have a question about what had brought this on; and while he wanted to blame it on a seizure, on food poisoning from the hot wings or even the side-effects of a bad headache, he knew better.

            It was Dean. And it was Hell. And it was braiding the two in so close together, they were candy-cane wrapped, and couldn’t be pulled apart.

            Sam couldn’t count the number of times his flashbacks to Hell had showed him one of Lucifer’s clever tricks: wearing Dean’s face. Making Sam believe big brother had found him, had come to save him, to save Adam, to take them both home. Only for Sam to find himself on a rack with _Dean’s_ razor carving his skin, _Dean’s_ pitiless, unaffected smile slicing just as many holes as the knife in his hand.

            Sam had known for years now what Dean had done after he’s gotten off of Alistair’s rack, downstairs. Knew that there were hundreds of souls Dean had whipped, beaten, butchered and engraved with the memory of his own suffering, souls that couldn’t fight back, couldn’t defend themselves.

            Like Marik, strapped to that chair, at the complete and total mercy of a merciless man with a knife.

            Hell was creeping close, with long claws that sank into Sam’s stomach and ripped a wet, sloppy moan from him. He dragged himself up and vomited again, bringing up nothing but a spew of burning acid until he slumped back to the floor and tucked his head between both arms, fingers weaving into his hair.

            Sam couldn’t think of a single time in his life when he’d actually been afraid of Dean; there had been instances, when he’d been scared _for_ him, or nervous when he saw Dean’s anger reaching a crescendo that usually meant someone in the immediate vicinity would be receiving a brutal shockwave of retribution, in the very near future.

            Sam had never felt this before; an instinctual, visceral terror, something festering in the marrow of his bones. His brain telling him to grab what he had and run, _now_ , before the torture moved closer, before the knife was on _his_ skin, _under_ his skin, ripping him apart for the millionth time.

            Sam heard the motel room’s door open, had one second to register that it was too late for flight and he was too weak to fight, before his stomach revolted again.

            Sam hung his head almost into the toilet bowl and didn’t answer when he heard Dean call his name. Wanted to stuff himself into the tiniest space between the toilet and the wall and just disappear. To get away from his hollow brother with his hollow eyes and his torturing tools; away from the failure of another lead that had gone cold.

            The door opened. “Sam, are you—? Oh, crap.”

            “Leave me alone.” Sam groaned, ropes of vomit hanging from his chin.

            “Not a chance.” Sam felt Dean’s arm brush his side as his brother moved closer, and he flinched, instinctively, with his brain telling him that the glint of the light off Dean’s ring was really a knife. “What, is this Hell?”

            Sam shook his head with a husky moan and threw up again.

            And Dean did something he hadn’t done in—years, a tradition that had fallen away when Sam had taken the steps to being a man, a young hunter, and hadn’t needed Dean with him anymore when he was sick.

Dean wrapped one arm around Sam from behind, laid a hand on his forehead. His palm was clammy and it felt good on Sam’s hot skin. Sam’s body arched and dispelled, and then he was retching, over and over again, until his throat felt scraped raw and he was shaking.

It was minutes before Sam could breathe again; he slumped over Dean’s arm, the only thing keeping him up, feeling like all of the strength and energy had been sucked out of him. Dean reached past him, flushed the toilet and shifted Sam around, propping him against the edge of the bathtub.

“You wanna tell me what that was all about?”

Sam turned his head away; he couldn’t look Dean in the eye, couldn’t face him, because inside his head Dean’s eyes were always black or they were red and one way or another, things weren’t right, and they both knew it.

“Sam, would you just talk to me?” Dean sounded worn thin and exhausted. “Tell me what’s going on with you, man. You’re scaring me.”

“ _I’m_ scaring _you_?” Sam snapped, his head wrenching around. “Dean, I just watched you torture a man for eight hours straight!”

Dean’s rebuttal was fast and frosty, without a trace of remorse. “You could’ve waited outside like I told you to.”

“This isn’t about what I _saw_ , Dean, it’s about what you _did_!”

“Oh, c’mon, Sam!” Dean rubbed a hand across his jaw. “Marik was a psychopath, he deserved what he got.”

“That crossed a line, Dean, and you know it!” Sam insisted.

“What the hell d’you know, Sam?” Dean’s voice was a throaty growl. “These people are attacking our _family_. They have to be stopped!”

“Yeah, you’re right. But we don’t have to sacrifice our humanity to do it!”

“What the hell else am I supposed to do? Huh? Just let Kaila win? Let her sacrifice John to the Mohera on a silver platter? Let her get to Bobby? _To you_?”

“You’re not the only one who’s a part of this fight. Stop trying to carry the whole thing by yourself, Dean, it’s killing you!”

“Shut up, Sam.” Dean hauled himself to his feet.

“You wanna know what I saw in that cabin, Dean?” Sam asked, and Dean stopped in the bathroom doorway. “I saw Lucifer. I saw Lucifer, torturing somebody who couldn’t fight back. And it scares…the _hell._ Out of me.”

Dean wheeled around to face him, and Sam steeled himself for the punch to the jaw that was probably on its way.

That wasn’t what he got; instead, he saw Dean’s eyes. Wide, glassy, looking through Sam, looking at something beyond him, for so long all Sam could hear was his own pulse battering its way into his eardrums. And Dean just kept staring. Maybe, taking a look at his own motives, his own purposes, his humanity.

Dean put his shoulder to the wall and slid back onto the floor, facing Sam. And finally snapped out of it, his eyes darting frantically. “’M’sorry, Sam. I’m sorry.”

            The reaction was so opposite of what Sam had expected, it took him a second to hunt up an answer. “This has to stop, Dean. The torturing. All of it.” Sam studied the ceiling. “I know what you’ve been doing. And I’ve been trying, to justify it. To myself. But I can’t. And I think you know that.”

            Dean cleared his throat. “When’d you find out?”

            “Three weeks ago. In Maine. When you came back to that crap motel at three in the morning with blood on your hands.”

            Dean gave him a classic look of disapproval. “You were supposed to be asleep, seizure-boy.”

            “And you were supposed to be keeping watch.” Sam sprawled out his legs and gave Dean’s knee a kick. “I guess we’re both slacking off.”

            Dean scrubbed a hand through his bristly hair, then slapped it down on his knee. “Marik was a dead-end, anyway. Kaila’s playin’ it safe, she’s not gonna let them bring us to her.”

            “She’s a survivor, that’s for sure.”

            Sam let the implication hang in the air alone.

            Dean heaved a sigh. “Tell me you’ve got some geek plan in that huge head of yours, Sam. ’Cause other than—what I’ve been doin’ with those monsters, I’ve got nothin’. Hell, they never even gave me a lead on the Mohera.”

            That much was obvious, or Dean would’ve said something weeks ago. Sam wiped his chin on his hand, the room swirling with another tip of nausea, then straightening out. “Just let me take the wheel on this one.” When Dean hesitated, Sam pressed in. “Dean. I can do this. You know I can.” He sniffed, nose twitching. “Please?”

            Dean’s mouth tugged down in a face-shrug, and then he smiled. “All right, so, what’s the Sammy-plan for getting us unstuck?”

            Sam rubbed his palms on his knees. “A spell. The same one Bobby used to find Lilith back…before your deal.” Clamping his mind closed against memories of Hellhounds and a demon’s lips covering his, and Dean’s shredded body on the floor.

            “Kaila knows we’re on her trail.” Dean pointed out. “She could be using magic to shield herself.”

            Sam shrugged. “It’s worth a shot, right?”

            Dean got to his feet, offering Sam his hand. Sam hesitated, memories of _knives_ and _skin_ and _blood_ pouring through his conscious.

            “Sammy.” Dean said, and for the first time in a month his voice didn’t sound hollow, didn’t sound on the edge between Giving Up and Already Dead. “I’m not gonna hurt you.”

            It sounded like basements and bandages and forgetting, and everything Sam had forced himself through the wreckage of his wall to find.

            “I know.” He let Dean haul him to his feet. “Sioux Falls?”

            Dean blew out a breath. “Home, sweet home.”

 

 

            The drive to South Dakota was almost like old times.

            Zeppelin cranked up and the windows rolled down, the smell of fast food pervading the bench seat with Dean licking the grease off his fingers before he’d dare touch the steering wheel; Sam with a salad and his hoodie on, able to pull it up and retreat inside himself every time a seizure wracked his brain. But coming around, every time, to the sound of Dean pounding away at the steering wheel, or letting go of it entirely to air guitar during Kashmir.

Things weren’t right, still weren’t normal.

            But Sam was eating, and Dean was singing; two things they’d been faltering in, lately. Sam ate so Dean wouldn’t worry; and Dean sang so Sam wouldn’t worry. Dean smiled, too, told jokes, and at one point Sam dozed off and when he woke up an hour later, Dean had written on his bare skin with a Sharpie marker.

            Sam looked down at it with his eyebrows up, still groggy. “Did you write ‘Sam Winchester wears women’s underwear’ on my arm?”

            “What? _No_.” Dean stared straight ahead with that tongue-poking out-of-his-teeth grin that always meant he’d been doing something mischievous.

            “Dude, your handwriting sucks.” Sam observed.

            Dean grumbled, “Shut up.”

            And he wasn’t quite there, but Sam knew he was trying, and that was something.

            It was a day-long drive that took them through Upstate New York and along the border of Lake Michigan. Sam watched the scenery fly by, sang along under his breath to the songs he knew, and tried to keep himself in the moment, not looking back. They stopped outside of South Bend, Indiana at midnight, Dean taking the front seat and Sam the back, and they cranked the windows open with nothing but the wind and insect-songs to lull them to sleep.

            Sam preferred that over nicotine-colored walls and stained shaggy carpets any day, even if he couldn’t stretch his huge frame out all the way across the backseat.

            They were on the road just after dawn with rest-stop coffee and a cold bagel sandwich apiece from a gas station, and they hit the ground running. It was barely after noon when they pulled through the familiar cluttered arch of the Singer Salvage yard.

            They climbed out, the Impala doors creaking in the still air; things always felt a little more serene and close at Bobby’s. It probably had something to do with the wards and sigils that dotted the edges and center of the property. In any case, Sam welcomed it, grabbing his backpack out of the foot well and taking the steps up to the back door two at a time.

            Bobby met him there, grabbing Sam in a one-armed hug before he could say anything; Sam dropped the backpack to return the hug, feeling Bobby’s subtle tremors.

            They’d scared him. They always did. And after parting ways over two months ago, they’d been in nothing but trouble.

            “Sorry,” Sam said, by way of greeting.

            Bobby curled a hand around the back of his neck, then pushed him out at arm’s length. “It’s damn good to see you, boy.”

            “Yeah. You, too.” Sam said, with feeling.

            “Sorry for droppin’ by without a phone call.” Dean joined them with an awkward nod toward Bobby; still a little tense after their argument over the phone.

            Apparently, present circumstances considered, that was the least of their troubles. Bobby dragged Dean in for a hug, too, giving him a couple good flat-handed slaps on the back for good measure before he let him loose, too.

            “So. New Hampshire was a bust?”

            “You could say that.” Dean sounded a little guilty and didn’t look at Sam.

            “We got Marik.” Sam explained. “So, that’s one down, at least.”

            “Can’t say I wasn’t sick of that leech pus-sucking his way across the States.” Bobby said bluntly. “C’mon in.”

            The house smelled like tacos and household cleaner, and old, dusty books. It looked like Bobby had been doing some rearranging; Sam dropped the backpack on the back of a kitchen chair and grabbed two sodas from the fridge.

            “Make yourself at home.” Bobby rolled his eyes and walked into the study, and Sam and Dean followed him in. “So, what’s it gonna be this time? What fool plan have you boys got in your heads now?”

            “Same plan, different part.” Sam handed Dean one of the sodas.

            “Find Kaila.” Bobby guessed, and Sam tilted his head in acknowledgement, tipping Coke down his throat. “Thought you said New Hampshire didn’t work out.”

            “It didn’t.” Dean said. “Sammy’s got a plan.”

            With Bobby’s expectant eyes on him, Sam straightened up. “You’re the one who told us that with a name, you can suss up just about anything, right?” Bobby shrugged and nodded. “We have her name. I think we should use that spell to try and find Kaila.”

            Dean tapped the neck of the soda bottle to his temple. “Smart.”

            “And what do you two idjits plan to do once you’ve got a crosshair on her?” Bobby crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair, like he was waiting for a punchline.

            “We rescue John.” Sam said. “And go after the Mohera. Together.”

            “Team Winchester, back in business.” Dean added.

            “Well, that’s nine kinds of crazy.” Bobby said, and when the brothers didn’t react, he puffed out a dramatic breath and got to his feet. “Let me see what I can find.”

            Sam took another sip of Coke and set the bottle on the desk, heading for the stairs. “I want to look at something. I’ll be back.”

            Sam was familiar with the attic of Bobby’s old house; in some ways, it was more of a home to him than any other place on the planet, except for the Impala. Sam had spent countless hours poring over books there in his childhood, and, after their dad had died and they’d stayed for an extended period at Bobby’s house, it had become a shelter for him, where he could drop the act and let his grief show through.

 Hiding from Dean; hiding from himself. Sam even had a vague memory of his time without any memories at all, trying to get upstairs before Dean had pulled him back down again. All of it, in that small eight-foot-wide, eleven-foot-long room stacked floor to ceiling with dusty old tomes.

            Sam returned to it now, because there was the simple factor of the Mohera, and their having no way of stopping it if they even managed to evacuate the souls it had devoured during its seven-month reign of terror across the earth.

            Sam started at the top and worked his way down; discarding every book that didn’t seem to have significance, he started ripping through monster manuals and every lore book on everything creepy-crawly that he could find.

            And an hour later, he sat on a teetering stack of volumes and raked both hands back through his hair, holding it off of his temples while he stared at the mess of pages scattered in his wake. Hopeless despair washed over him; a deep sense that, even if they somehow saved John and stopped Kaila, they’d be no closer to stopping the larger threat, the one that was endangering mankind.

            Sam knew he should go downstairs; find Bobby and Dean. See if the spell had worked. And then—what? Chase Kaila, with no idea what they would do after that? Even with John’s help, Sam wasn’t looking forward to facing Purgatory’s oldest and angriest inhabitant.

            And it clicked, like a switch flicking on.

            _Purgatory_.

            Sam almost knocked the stack of books flying in his haste; he skidded down the attic stairs, bolted down the hallway and descended to the first floor, shooting around the corner into the study. “Bobby! Where’s the book?”

            Dean and Bobby had the massive compass set up on the desk, its pendulum swinging. They both stared at Sam like he’d lost his mind.

            “You’re gonna have to be more specific than that, son.” Bobby said.

            “The, uh, the book the dragons had!” Sam shaped the dimensions with his hands.

            Bobby jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “Downstairs bathroom, under the sink.”

            It wasn’t the only book down there, but it was the best protected, wrapped in a sandwich baggie inside a plastic shopping sack. Sam pulled it out and flipped through it frantically, until he got to the scrap of missing paper: the page the dragons had torn out before they’d gone to Purgatory. Sam reached into his back pocket, pulled out the pad of paper and pencil he always kept on him, for situations on the hunt when they needed to write something down. Sprawling on his stomach on the bathroom floor, he pressed a piece of paper lightly to the next page over, laid the edge of the pencil on it, and started scribbling.

            It took almost three minutes; Sam could’ve counted his heartbeats, the seconds passing by until he’d finished copying the page. He rolled onto his back, holding the paper up toward the light, his lips soundlessly forming the faint outlines of imprinted words there.

            “Dude,” Sam whispered. “No way.”

            He spun up onto his knees, to his feet, and ran headlong back into the study, whipping around the corner and almost slamming into Dean.

            “Whoa-ho, Sammy,” Dean’s tone was easy, his hands steadying Sam by his shoulders. “Slow down, big guy.”

            “I did it,” Sam said, breathless with triumph. “I found out how to send the Mohera back to Purgatory.”

            Bobby’s head snapped up from the map on the desk. “ _Beg your pardon_?”

            “The diary, the…the journal the dragons had. Something my dad taught me: if you press two pages of a book together and write really hard, the indents can pass through one page and into the next.” Sam slapped the paper down on the desk next to Bobby’s hand. “It’s a little cluttered, but I think we can use it.”

            Bobby snatched the paper, his eyes scanning it hastily. “I’ll be damned.” He bumped his trucker cap back and rubbed his forehead. “This just might be worth somethin’.” His wide eyes tracked between the Winchesters. “Gimmie a minute.”

            He vanished upstairs.

            Sam leaned his hands on the desk, the excitement in his mind churning to a halt when Dean slapped him on the back. “Nice work, Sammy.”

            “Thanks.” Sam stared at the pendulum, marking out a small town in—“Oregon?”

            “That’s what Bobby dug up, yeah.” Dean braced his hands on the edge of the desk across from Sam.

            “Baker City.” Sam murmured. “That’s where you found those reports, right? The missing people?”

            “Bingo.” Dean rubbed the side of his neck, his eyes glued to the map. “Bobby’s worried.”

            Sam perched on the edge of the desk. “Bobby’s always worried.”

            “No, I mean, he’s _really_ worried.” Dean repeated. “I guess he’s been watching the news while we were AWOL, looking for Reggie and Jack. There’s been a lot of deaths out there—I mean, we’re talking mass-murder, here.”

            “Humans?” Sam dreaded the answer.

            “And monsters.” Dean’s gaze lifted to his.

            Sam’s stomach bottomed out. “Mohera.”      

            Even with a potential spell, a basis for a plan, Sam felt the lurch of unease at the thought of actually facing the thing. And if it was killing in droves, it would be more powerful than when they’d faced it in Japan; and there, they’d barely escaped with their lives, coupled with the assistance of a dozen hunters-from-birth.

            Now it was two against one: two humans, one monster, and a sickening amount of souls inside of it, feeding it power.

            “What’s it doing out there?” He mused aloud.

            “My guess it, it’s after Kaila. Probably still thinks she’s the only with the mojo to take it down.”

            “Right. And with more souls—”

            “It’s feeling cocky.”   

            “You know what they say about pride.” Bobby joined the conversation, holding out a triangle of folded paper to Sam. “That’s as near as I could figure on the spell. Calls for some specifics—monster’s blood, virgin’s blood, a coupla herbs.”

            Sam relaxed. “You think we can pull it off?”

            “Can? More’n likely.” Bobby said. “But you’d hafta be screws-loose in the head to try it now.”

            Dean blinked slowly, straightening. “And why’s that?”

            “Because you’re puttin’ yourself between two charging armies, Dean.” Bobby snapped. “And don’t tell me that monster out there ain’t an army in itself, I’ve seen it in action. That thing, is _deadly_. And it’s pissed. And you boys don’t have enough heads on your bodies to watch all the flanks that are gonna be under fire if you step out in the middle and try and stop it.”

            “We’ve got each other’s backs. We’ve pulled of bigger with less.” Dean said, and Sam was surprised by how confident he sounded.

            “That don’t make this right, son. I’m tellin’ you, I got the mother of all bad feelings. I want you and Sam to sit this one, wait until your enemies aren’t in the same state, and clashing.”

            “Bobby, that’s _why_ we have to go.” Sam insisted. “Kaila’s got John. If we wait until she has a chance to use him against the Mohera, he’ll already be dead by the time we get to him.”

            “Sam’s right, y’know, we’ve got a pretty slim window, here. Gotta make the most of it.” Dean backed him smoothly, and Sam breathed out a silent sigh of relief.

            “You two knuckleheads are gonna buy me up a farm’a gray hairs.” Bobby grumbled. “At least take some food before ya hit the road.”

            “Now, that, I’m not turning down.” Dean grinned.

            It turned out to be more than just food; it was food in front of Bobby’s recently restored television set that only picked up two-point-five channels, and the only thing was on was a John Wayne western. So it was John Wayne and tacos and soda, and Sam stretched out on the couch with his feet on the armrest, Dean on the floor with his back against the couch and Bobby in a chair pulled in from the kitchen.

            It was childhood, it was adulthood, it was home and family, and Sam was surprised when he realized the movie was over and he hadn’t even had a seizure. Thinking back on it, he hadn’t had one all day.

            Feeling lighthearted and full of good food, he flipped over. “How far is it from here to Baker City, Bobby?”

            “A day, give or take a couple hours.” Bobby gathered up the three empty plates and went to dump them in the sink.

            “Maybe we should just get a good night’s sleep tonight and head out in the morning.” Sam murmured.

Dean leaned his head back to look at Sam, and surprised him with a nod. “Yeah, sounds good.”

They didn’t get a protest from Bobby, just an armful of blankets and a blunt order to get to bed early. And apparently early meant ‘ _now_ ’, even though it was seven o’ clock and the sun hadn’t even set, because Bobby clicked off the light on the desk on his way upstairs. Sam’s mouth wrinkled down in resignation and he spread the blanket out over his knees, lumping over on his side.

 Dean built himself a nest on the floor and Sam tucked his head against the armrest and let his hair fan into his face.

Things were quiet, for a minute.

“Dean, you remember that one time when we were kids and Bobby took us to Fall Park?” Sam asked.

“Go to sleep, Sam.

He tried, but his thoughts chased themselves in circles well into the night.

 

 

Sam woke well-rested, before Dean did, kicking him awake on his way to the bathroom. By the time Sam came out, dressed and with his hair wetted down, Dean was awake and casing the room, running his hands over everything: bookshelves, desk, edge of the couch, with this look on his face that Sam knew he wasn’t supposed to see. Something private and sacred like the way Dean had kept his childhood and the way Sam hid his memories of Jessica.

When Sam cleared his throat softly and shifted, Dean looked up; his expression was carefully neutral. He picked up an envelope from the desk that was addressed to both of them in Bobby’s unmistakable careful scrawl.

Dean opened it and pulled out five hundred dollars.

Sam crossed the room to his side and picked up the Post-It note that had been folded around the cash: _Be safe out there_.

Sam didn’t say anything, watching as Dean sniffed, stuffed the money into his pocket and picked up Sam’s backpack. Checking to make sure he had the incantation on him, Sam followed his brother outside.

Dawn was creeping over the horizon in an ashen gray-rosy sweep. Dean tossed the backpack in through the Impala’s back window, circled around and climbed into the driver’s seat. Sam took his station at shotgun, and for a minute they sat there, not saying anything.

Dean cleared his throat and draped his arm over the steering wheel. “We should call him. When we get out there.”

Sam nodded. “Yeah, definitely.”

They twitched their heads sideways almost simultaneously, looking up at the house that had been a constant in their childhood, a place of rest and comfort, the first they’d turned to when their dad had died and everything had started to crumble around them. And Sam couldn’t shake the graceless pain that consumed him, staring at it now. Feeling like those special memories were losing their hold, and bowing away.

Sam’s voice was husky, when he finally found the words. “It feels like—”

“Yeah.”

Nothing more to be said.

Dean drove away from the house, and Sam watched it, and the Salvage Yard, disappearing in the rearview mirror until he couldn’t see them anymore.

 


	4. Chapter 4

_June 23 rd, 2012_

_Outside of Letha, Idaho_

“Man, I hate this state.”

            Dean was cramped and a little sore, after making most of the drive without a pit stop; and Idaho had a fat midsection and it was freaking boring. Not to mention, _Arco_ , which was way north of the route they were taking on Highway Fifty-Two, but it was still out there, and those were still crappy memories.

            Sam picked his head up from the map with a sigh; looked like he was praying for patience, probably for the patience not to reach across the front seat and throttle Dean. “We’re still, like, thirty minutes from the border, Dean. Just calm down.”

            Dean shifted, checking the clock on the dashboard; it was early, on the right side of four in the morning, but the horizon ahead of them was lit up with a blast of a lightning storm so bright Dean almost got distracted by it. It was a belly-down, orange-white stripe flashing every few seconds.

            Sam pulled the flashlight form the groove between his shoulder and his cheek, clicking it off. “Yeah, we’re close. Just stick with Fifty-Two when it merges with Interstate-Eighty-Four.”

            Dean had to hand it to him, Sam was being a trooper; wedged into the car, no bathroom breaks meaning no food, no drinks and no rest for the wicked. But Sam, folded in with his legs crammed under the dashboard like always, hadn’t said one negative thing the entire car ride. Just squirmed around every couple of hours to get comfortable.

            It hit Dean right then that bench seats and low-slung foot wells were great for twelve-year-olds with scuffed knees and sneakers. But Sam was a man and he was crammed as hell and that wasn’t fair to him. And if a lot of things weren’t fair to Sam, well, Dean figured he didn’t need to add to the trash-heap.

            He started planning.

            Fifteen minutes later, Sam was tapping his fingers on his knee and staring out the smudged glass throwing his reflection back at him, and he finally said the first thing he’d said in hours without prompting: “I miss the way things used to be.”

            It was so totally random, Dean didn’t have a better response than, “What?”

            “Our lives.” Sam didn’t take his eyes off the window. “I miss the way they were…before.”

            They had a lot of befores and a lot of afters, and that all got kinda knotted up in Dean’s head somewhere, probably where he gained forty years in Hell and then lost them topside. “What d’you mean?”

            “I mean, before I had the seizures. Before I even had the _Wall_.” Sam gestured to Dean in the darkness, “Before you went to Hell,” and dropped his arm across his lap. “I dunno. I guess, I just. I miss when our lives made sense.”

            “Right. Back when we were hunting some new ugly thing every week.” Dean felt nostalgic for that sometimes, too; getting thrown against walls every other day, instead of having the fate of the world over his head _every single freaking day_.

            “You think we can ever go back to that?” Sam asked, and it sounded like an honest, genuine question. Typical Sam. “Y’know, if we kill the Mohera. And Kaila.”

            Dean mulled that one over, because when Sam asked questions like that it usually meant he wouldn’t appreciate a flippant answer. And Dean wasn’t in the mood to shrug it off, anyway. Tonight felt like one of those claustrophobic nights where people talked about this stuff because it mattered.

            “I dunno. Maybe. Once we find a Healer or a priest or whatever, get ’em to work some mojo on you and put your head back together.”

            “About that,” Sam cleared his throat, and Dean braced himself for another lecture on how much they were wasting their time trying to find a way to fix him. “I was thinking we should call Death.”

            Well, okay. “Death. _The_ Death. The guy who put that crap wall in your head in the first place? Sam, we’re not exactly on the guy’s Christmas-card list.”

            “Right, I know that. But Dean, if he could create a wall before, maybe he can do it again. Just…something to stop the seizures. So I can get back to hunting, like I used to.”

            Ever after six years, mostly on the road, mostly doing this job, in this front seat, with his brother, Dean still felt an arctic chill on his spine when he realized Sam wasn’t about to skip town on him. That this was their life and they were sticking to it, together. There wasn’t a lot Dean could depend on in his life; but most of the time, this was enough.

            “Like I said before, Sam, we’ll figure it out.” Dean said confidently. “Let’s just focus on icing Kaila and the Cookie Monster before we get back down to the business.”

            He saw Sam’s smile tug on in the lights coming from the dashboard. “Yeah. Sounds good.”

            They had a few miles to go when Dean realized something was wrong.

            At first he thought it was just more lightning, bursts that lasted longer and stayed brighter than most. The Impala skimmed through a few more yards of the interstate before he realized what he was seeing, and that stomach-to-the-knees, something’s-not-right feeling took over.

            “You thinkin’ what I’m thinkin’?” His voice was sharp.

            “Yeah.” Sam leaned forward in his seat, craning his head around to stare out the windshield. “Since when does Oregon have border patrol?”

            Helicopters whirred over their heads, gliding through the projectile beams off of huge spotlights anchored to the ground. The barbed-wire fence looked like it had been thrown up in a hurry, but it stretched as far as Dean could see, left and right, on their side of the _Welcome to Oregon_ sign beside the road.

            “What the hell is going on?” Sam asked, tautly. Dean shrugged off the bad feeling that was threading its way up his nerves.

            “Guess we’re about to find out.” He lifted his chin toward the armored vehicle parked right on the other side of the fence.

            No gate.

            They pulled up to the end of the road and Dean climbed out first, slamming the door behind him; the air was chilly and wet and found its way into the cracks under the jacket Bobby had given him. His leather one was ruined, stuffed in the boot of the car.

            Sam leaned against the Impala, scouting their surroundings, while Dean went to do some recon.

            “What, did Dennis let the dinosaurs out again?” Dean asked lightly, winding his fingers between chained links on the fence.

            The guy in the armored car gave Dean that flat look that he knew like a charm: soldier, on duty.

            Dean switched tactics. “You mind telling me what’s going on here?”

            “Yes, sir.” The soldier kept his eyes straight forward. “No unauthorized personnel allowed. This state is under quarantine.”

            “This—the whole damned _state_?” Dean echoed, shooting a glance toward Sam. His profile highlighted by the bright white searchlights, Sam leaned away from the Impala, hands stuffed in his pockets.

            “That’s right, sir. They’re working on laying the fence down on every line across the border.”

            “Who is? What, have you got the entire National Guard out here?”

            He’d meant it sarcastically, but in their screwed-up lives usually the sarcastic answer was the right one. And this was one of those cases.

            “And anyone in the United States military who isn’t deployed overseas.” The soldier added. “Don’t you watch the news?”

            Dean didn’t, but Bobby did; and if Bobby hadn’t called them, then this had to be pretty recent. Dean stared through the fence, at the makeshift compounds that were swarming with guys in uniform. Army, Marines—Dean knew the look.           

            “What’s the occasion?” He kept his voice calm, offhanded. Kept his game-face on, like he always did.

            “That’s classified information, sir.”

            “Look, my dad’s a marine, and he’s in there. Corporal John Winchester, Echo two-one. So you better tell me there’s a damn good reason why I can’t see him.” Wasn’t exactly a lie, just a couple of truths wedged together. Dean saw the soldier peer over his shoulder cautiously before he answered.

            “There’s been a string of violent deaths—”

            “A string? They’re locking down a state for a _string of deaths_? C’mon, man, you gotta give me something better than that.”

            “Ten thousand people. Dead in a day.”

            Dean’s legs turned to water, sagging him hard against the fence; his fingers through the links, the only thing that kept him from falling to his knees. “Oh, _shit_.”

            “They think it’s some sort of contagion. Until we know for certain, the state is in quarantine to prevent any further spread of…whatever this is.” The soldier waved a hand vaguely over his shoulder. “I’m sorry about your father.”

            Dean crushed his palm to the fence and then spun away from it, moving back to the car, sliding in behind the wheel.

            Sam got in a second later. “Dean? What’s going on?”

            “We have to get in there, Sammy.” Dean threw the car into reverse, peeling back on the road until he could spin her and take off away from the lights and the lightning. “This thing’s killing like crazy. Ten thousand people in a day.”

            Sam groaned. “No.”

            “This outta control. We have to stop this thing. _Now_.”

            “Dean, how? You saw the border, it’s fenced off.”

            “Not everywhere. Not yet.”

            Dean floored it.

 

 

            They outran the soldiers laying down the fencing a few miles south of the Wallowa National Forest, according to Sam’s map. It was a long way off the beaten path to Baker City, but it was good enough for Dean. He pulled off a dusty backroad and crossed the border, and Sam smacked the map with the back of his hand.

            “This is it, we’re in.”

            “Great. Now we just gotta dodge the friggin’ Army.”

            Turned out to be a little easier than he’d expected; they parked under the shade of some huge trees, shut off the lights, let the Impala’s sleek black hide blend into the darkness. They watched the truck come by with a huge spool of fencing jutting out from one side. The soldiers in the bed of the truck were feeding it off the line and a couple were on foot, following behind the truck and stapling the fencing down every couple feet.

            Had to be a pain in the ass.

            Sam let out a low breath. “They probably have two or three of these trucks running every border.” He shook his head, his hair smacking his cheek. “I can’t believe it got this bad, this fast. I thought we had more time.”

            “Ten thousand doesn’t sound like a lotta time.” Dean leaned his head back. “We gotta scope the place out, Sam, figure out what we’re up against.”

            They waited half an hour after the fencing truck rolled past, and then Dean pulled out again. They headed for Baker City by way of Joseph, trying to get a read on what exactly was going on.

            The first thing Dean noticed: ghost towns.

            Every city they passed, big or small, was deserted. More than likely, everyone was camped out inside, waiting out the lockdown. But it felt more like everyone was _dead_. Like a zombie flick.

            The hair was standing up permanently on the back of Dean’s neck. “This is weird, Sammy.”

            “It’s wrong.” Sam agreed. “Even at this hour, people should be out.” He sat up straighter in his seat. “It’s too dark.”

            The light poles were off, store-fronts were shut down.

            And then, blood.

            It was everywhere, blanketing the street, slicking the rims of the Impala. Dean fisted the steering wheel and clenched his jaw against the pain and rage that flooded his chest; the feeling of helplessness as the tires skidded through a thin layer of crimson and Dean could smell that saccharine-sweet stench from the Mohera.

            It’d been here; close. Killing people. No one had had time to clean up the mess.

            Sam swallowed convulsively. “No wonder everyone’s inside.”

            “That’s not gonna save ’em.” Dean grated.

            Sam stared out the window, watching the blood thin out the further they went. “Dean, what if there are people out there like me?”

            “What do you mean, ‘ _like you_ ’?”

            “I mean…people whose bodies can survive without a soul. Who can retain their consciousness.” Sam’s eyes moved fast, like he was seeing something Dean couldn’t see, his freaky brain mapping out all the possibilities, none of them good. “It would be an army of shells walking the world.”

            And just one had been bad enough; Dean had had his hands full keeping Soulless on a tight enough leash that he wasn’t punting people just for making one stupid decision. His brain couldn’t wrap around a pack of people on that wavelength.

            “We’re not gonna let that happen.” Dean cruised a little faster toward Baker City. “We’re gonna end this. And if Kaila wants to stop us, she can come find us.”

            He dove into his jacket pocket and dragged out the phone he’d lifted off of Marik, right before he’d torched the house; he tossed it to Sam. “Look her up.”

            Sam scrolled through the contacts, hit the dial button and handed the phone back to Dean. Dean crushed it against this ear and tried to keep his grip loose on the thing, so he wouldn’t Hulk out and bust it.

            It rang forever, more times than Dean would’ve liked, and he was starting to think it wasn’t gonna work.

            And then, miracle of miracles: a voice on the line.

            “Marik, what took you so long? You were supposed to check in two days ago!”

            Dean gave himself a second to battle down the immediate fire-breathing fury that crushed him when he heard Kaila’s southern drawl, popstar voice. Felt Sam’s eyes on him, wary, and that helped him focus.

            “Hey, sweetheart. Ya miss me?”

            Kaila stayed quiet for a few seconds. “I wouldn’t say that.” She sighed dramatically. “God, I _knew_ something was wrong when Marik didn’t check in. He was always the punctual one.”

            “Yeah, I’d say I’m sorry about that. But I’m not. Guy deserved what he got.”

            “Well, no sense crying over spilled milk.” Dean could hear the shrug in her voice, and hell if didn’t still creep him out, the way this chick seemed like she didn’t feel _anything_. Worse than Soulless, because with her, he’d looked her in the eyes and seen her soul. And he’d seen how having a soul didn’t _matter_ , with her. “Obviously, you called me because you wanted something. What’s the terms?”

            “All right, here’s the deal.” Dean said. “We’re in town. Me and Sam. And we want our dad back.”

            He was past the point of kicking himself for that.

            “Who? _Oh_ , you mean the _Shifter_.” Kaila sounded like she was pouring all the contempt into this that she had. “Well, he’s certainly still with me. You can come and try to get him back, if you like. But I’m warning you,” And her voice turned steely, with an edge like ice. Almost frosty enough to make a man shiver. “You _won’t_ come out of this fight alive, Dean Winchester.”

            That was a threat with a bite to it, and Dean knew it. Took it to heart. And decided he didn’t care.

            “You caught us in a pretty tight spot, sister. After what you did to Rufus? To _Cass_? We are fresh outta forgiveness. And we’ve got nothin’ left to lose.” He matched his tone to hers, beat to beat, threat to threat. “And my eyes are gonna be the last thing you see before you die.”

            Kaila snorted. “I’m in a wheat granary. This brand new thing. Fifteen miles from Baker City, west. Come and get me, big boy.”

            The line went dead.

            Dean threw the phone on the seat and pawed a hand down his face, letting it rest on the stubble on his chin. Sam was still watching him, with that corners-of-the-eyes look that made Dean feel like a test subject.

            “What?” He snapped.

            “We do have something to lose.” Sam said, simply.

            The amulet around Dean’s neck suddenly felt like it weighed a ton.

            They didn’t make it to Baker City before Dean saw Sam curl against the door, hit with the first seizure in almost forty-eight hours. And that pretty much ended the campaign, brought Dean down off an adrenaline high and back to going in smart, because it was after five in the morning, they hadn’t slept in almost twenty-four hours and after a Hell-vision, Sam was gonna need his sleep.

            Not that Dean didn’t appreciate keeping a hold of money for as long as he could, but lifting keys to an abandoned motel room still felt wrong. But he couldn’t think about that, couldn’t let it decide things for him; he had to take care of himself, take care of Sam. They could worry about paying the motel owner back later, if the guy wasn’t in six billion pieces somewhere on a back road.

Dean let himself into the room, made a sweep that turned it up empty of monsters, hunters and cockroaches, and went back out for Sam. The seizure had been a bad one, apparently, because Sam wasn’t getting out on his own.

Dean cracked the door and crouched. “Hey. We’re stopping for the night, Sammy. No use to the world if we’re dead on our feet.”

Sam nodded listlessly and didn’t fight it when Dean pulled him to his feet; slinging Sam’s gangly arm across his shoulders, Dean plowed toward the motel room, levering him down on the edge of the bed and going back out for _everything_. All the weapons, all the salt, the spray-paint cans, everything they owned besides the car that wouldn’t fit in the door. Dean laid down the salt, put up sigils he knew to ward off monsters. Probably wouldn’t work on the Mohera.

            He painted on the ones Kyoshi had taught him while they were in Japan; the spell was supposed to mask their scent so the Mohera couldn’t pick up a trace on them. Dean wasn’t sure if it would even still cover the bases, with this thing getting more and more powerful every day.

            _Ten thousand_.

            Dean tossed the empty can of spray paint into the trashbin beside the door and looked at Sam; he’d sprawled out on his back on the bed, his arm over his eyes, but he wasn’t sleeping. Dean could tell.

            “All those people, Dean…”

            “I know.” Dean was starving, thirsty, he was tired and his skin was hot and itchy and it was just too damned much. Ten thousand people dead in _one day_. And there were maybe a hundred _could’ve-beens_ —they could’ve never gone to Japan, never lost John and Rufus, could’ve been sharp, still had Castiel—but the truth was the truth, facts were facts and the body count didn’t change based on the things _they_ would’ve changed, if they’d had any idea of where this was going,

            Hindsight, twenty-twenty.

            “Can’t do this anymore, Dean.” Sam’s weary voice was muffled by his arm; and Dean wasn’t sure if he meant the seizures or hunting or people dying or Kaila or _take your pick_ , because it wasn’t ever gonna be over no matter what they did, and when Dean had said they had nothing to lose, he’d really meant, _We’ve got nothing left that we’re gonna let you take away_.

            But that didn’t mean they couldn’t bleed; couldn’t hurt. And that was what they were stepping into with heads held high, tomorrow morning. Knowing that it was either a hundred against two or ten-thousand-plus against two, and whether it was Kaila or the Mohera, odds were against the Winchesters.

            That was how they always played.

            Sam turned on his side, his head on his arm, facing Dean. And he was out like a light so fast, he didn’t bother taking care of himself.

            So Dean did it instead, because he was Dean and Sam was Sam and it was so normal, it kinda cleared his head. Dean stripped off his brother’s boots, pulled off Sam’s jacket from his arms, letting them flop around like dead fish, and he was almost smirking. He pushed and pulled the covers over Sam’s shoulders and then sat on his own bed, sinking into the pillows, arms crossed.

            And finally, somehow, a little calm.

            Dean sat on that bed for hours and thought about the Impala.

            He didn’t fall asleep until after sunrise, but he figured, if the Mohera came while he was sawing logs, it didn’t matter. He wouldn’t be able to do much about it on his best day, so, let it come.

            He fell asleep down on his chest, with the amulet dangling loose from his shirt, and battle strategy running through his mind.

  

 


	5. Chapter 5

_June 23 rd, 2012_

_Knight’s Inn, Baker City, Oregon_

The following afternoon held a weighted sense of anticipation.

            Sam felt it from the second he opened his eyes to the pale, off-color ceiling of a motel he couldn’t remember stepping into. What he did remember was a seizure, a nasty Soulless one, and that only fueled his fear that the Mohera was going to slip up, or change its eating habits, and rather than exploding somebody, it would leave their body without a soul behind.

            Sam lay still for a moment, his hands resting loosely on his stomach, and then he rolled his head sideways to look at the other bed.

            Dean was out cold, face-down in the pillow, with wild bed-head and the steady rise and fall of his breaths. Even with his memories of the night before, vaguely scrambled, Sam could remember enough to know that Dean, like always, had picked up the slack. Pulled him off the edge.

            It had only been two, three days, but New Hampshire already felt like a bad memory. Like most personal crises the Winchesters faced, it was on the back-burner for the sake of the greater good. But watching Dean sleep right now—time could’ve turned back. This could have been them, and their life, before Hell, before all of it. And Sam was grateful, because with everything they were facing, he couldn’t afford to let his damaged mind associate Dean with Satan.

            So for a while he just laid there, breathing, and remembering that one time in Hell when Dean had come to save him. Remembering right up until the moment the Hellhounds, at Lucifer’s command, had ripped apart that illusion of safety.

            Finally, he couldn’t put it off anymore. Sam stuffed his feet into his boots, grabbed his jacket and the keys off the bedside table, and headed outside.

            If Baker City had seemed, like Joseph, a ghost town in the early hours before dawn, here at late afternoon the sense was more profound. Deserted street corners, not a single person in sight. Almost post-apocalyptic. Sam double-checked the clip in his firearm before he took the Impala and started driving.

            He cruised around town for half an hour, passing Starbucks, Dunkin’ Donuts and a plethora of other business that he couldn’t bring himself to break into. These people were going to come back, and he didn’t want to loot; but eventually logic broke the barrier of compassion, and Sam realized they _needed to eat_.

            He pulled up to a Burger King a few blocks from the motel, tested the unlocked employee door around back, and slipped inside.

            The eeriness that greeted him was enough to stop Sam dead in his tracks; it wasn’t like people had closed up shop and left, it was almost as if they’d disappeared where they were standing. There were still pre-cooked burgers and French Fries in the hotbox, the register was open but untouched.

            Sam scanned the empty lobby, turning up chairs scooted back, empty soda cups on trays of half-eaten food. The floppy ears of a stuffed rabbit peeked shyly around the back of one of the booths.

            It was _wrong_ , everything about this felt _wrong_ , and Sam had to shake himself back into action. He grabbed every untouched piece of cold food in sight, considering himself lucky that they’d shut off most of the grills so that there was actually a business to come back to—and to raid.

            Cold apple slices, containers of milk, water bottles. Sam stuffed them all into his backpack, then slapped a twenty on the counter and hopped it, heading out the door; still feeling guilty even though nobody was there to see him.

            He made it back to the motel by four in the afternoon, and it looked like Dean had slept the entire hour he’d been gone. Sam almost wanted to let him sleep; almost.

But they had a lead on Kaila, John was closer than ever. They had work to do.

            “Hey.” Sam shook Dean’s leg. “Up and at ’em, Dean.”

            His brother snorted, picking his head up, his hair scruffing into his eye. “Ugh. What time is it?”

            “Four.” Sam peeled off his boots and unzipped the backpack. “I went for a food run. Cold cheeseburger or cold chicken sandwich?”

            Dean blinked hard, levering himself up on one elbow and holding out his hand. “Cheeseburger. Is that even a question?”

            Sam passed him the two cheeseburgers on top of the stack and unwrapped the chicken for himself. “How’d you sleep?”

            “Like a rock.” Dean sat up the rest of the way, taking a slow, thoughtful bite out of his cheeseburger. “How’s your head?”

            “Better, I guess.” Sam looked past him, toward the door. “Dean, it’s crazy out there. It’s too _quiet_. I drove for, like, an hour, and I didn’t see _anybody._ Not even military personnel.”

            “Huh.” Dean moved the mush of cheeseburger thoughtfully inside his mouth, then shrugged.

            Sam tilted his head. “What?”

            “Well, it’s not like we’re the only ones out here, right? So where’s Kaila’s army of three-hundred, or whatever?”

            “Maybe they’re not in Baker City.”

            “Dude, you saw the map. There’s nothing out by that granary, just open fields and trees, and then this place. How’s she feeding all those people?”

            Sam set his chicken sandwich on his knees, mulling it over, and the intense feeling of seeping dread built up more and more inside his gut; until he felt like he had a rock where his stomach should’ve been, and the thought of taking another bite repulsed him. He set the sandwich on the table between the beds and rubbed his face in his hands.

            “We just have to sack up and do it, Dean.” He said. “Find her and kill her, so we can hunt the Mohera.”

            “I know.” Dean ripped into the second cheeseburger. “So, you didn’t see _anything_ out there? Seriously.”

            “No, it’s just like…everyone got up and left. In a hurry.”

            “Huh.” Dean crumpled up one of the burger wrappers and lobbed it into the trashcan. “Kinda makes you wonder where they went.”

            Sam’s mind tried to work that one, too; constructing images of triage tents, sterile facilities, a sanitized line of defense against a virus that didn’t exist. And Sam wasn’t even sure the government believed that a rampant sickness was the cause; because what kind of contagion could explode a person’s body like that?

            “At least we don’t have to worry about anyone getting caught in the crossfire.” Sam unloaded the rest of the food from his backpack. “We should clean the guns, make sure everything’s ready.”

            Dean sniffed, tossed the rest of the cheeseburger in the garbage and brushed the seeds from the bun off of his hands. “Yup.”

            They sat on their separate beds, in rumpled clothes and in silence, dismantling, swabbing and reassembling each and every one of their weapons. To Sam, it felt too much like the morning before they’d left for Detroit; the day he’d left Lucifer in. There was that same sense of finality in everything they did.

            And it continued, through a routine that had become so ingrained in their lives: brushing their teeth in the bathroom, changing, showering, shaving. Every movement, every action punctuated with an unspoken, _This is the last…_

            The last time Sam rinsed off the bottle of toothpaste when Dean was done with it. The last time Dean picked up Sam’s jacket off the floor and tossed it to him. The last time they packed the duffle Bobby had loaned them, brushing hands as Dean took the guns from Sam and loaded them inside. Dean zipped the duffle closed and left the room and Sam stayed inside, cleaning it up and making the beds just to give his hands something to do, something to occupy his mind.

            Dean came back ten minutes later. “C’mon, let’s wash her.”

            They stood out under the hot sun, with the buckets Dean had taken from the drugstore a block from the motel, filled with water from the bathtub. They washed the Impala in familiar foamy circles, lifting off weeks of dirt and the protective symbols Sam had chalked on her in New Hampshire. They worked until she shined in soapy glory with twilight on its way, and then Dean grabbed two beers from the cooler in the foot well and they leaned against the side of the motel and watched the sunset across her back.

            Standing there with his fingers playing merry havoc against the long neck of the beer bottle, Sam found himself circling back, remembering the first time him and Dean had ever washed the car together; they’d been three and seven, Sam barely tall enough to reach much above the door handles, Dean having just hit a growth spurt that gave him access to the tops of the windows. They’d washed her with all the gusto a pair of kids could have—and John had been furious.

            Probably because they’d washed her in the middle of winter and iced over _everything_. The hot water, apparently, hadn’t helped.

            Sam cracked a smile at the memory, taking another swig of beer.

            “Hey, Sam, I was thinking,” Dean said, suddenly, and he had that tone of voice like he was about to suggest something monumental. “You are one overgrown guy.”

            “Uh,” Sam blinked. “Okay? Thanks, I guess.”

            Dean didn’t seem to hear him, squinting his eyes against the sunburst revolving across the Impala’s back. “I mean, you hit six-foot-four before you left for Stanford. And I’ve been cramming you into that car for the past—God, years. So, I was thinkin’…y’know, when this is over, maybe we should look for a bigger car.”

            Sam almost dropped the beer bottle, swiveling his head around to look at Dean; his eyes weren’t flashing black, and Sam guessed he _could’ve_ been a Shapeshifter, but even a Shapeshifter would have enough of Dean’s memories by now—would’ve had enough of a taste of Dean’s brain in the first two seconds—to know that Dean would never, _ever_ suggest that.

            “Dude, are you okay?”

            Dean gave him a typical aggravated look. “I’m fine, Sam.”

            “Are you…are _you_ , seriously, telling me we should get rid of the Impala?”

            “No! Not get rid of her. Just…park her at Bobby’s. I can still take her out if I do solo hunts, or when I’m goin’ into town.” Dean wouldn’t meet Sam’s eyes; stared at the Impala like this was a goodbye.

            Sam’s veins chilled with irrational anger. “No. No way. I don’t care if I have to sit with my knees up my ass, she’s not going. _Anywhere_.”

            His own vehemence surprised him; but the thought of hunting without the smell of leather seats and gunpowder, without the feel of the engine humming against the backs of his knees, was too much. With everything else bearing down on him, the thought made Sam want to punch a wall. The Impala was his _home_.

            Dean flicked a smile that was one part surprised and one part relieved, and then he chucked the beer bottle into the trash and stretched. “Whaddya say we go hunt ourselves a monster, Sammy?”

            Sam nodded mutely, following Dean inside; they grabbed the backpack and the duffle and Dean was out first, like he couldn’t leave fast enough. Sam took a second with his hand on the doorknob, staring around the room. It felt vacant, the silence too close, and too loud in itself. The faint smell of mouthwash and fast food still hung on the air.

            Sam shut the door and walked to the car.

            Dean was already in the front seat, in uncharacteristic silence, the radio off. Sam gripped the top of the door and slid in beside him, subtly wedging his knees under the dashboard and hoping Dean wouldn’t comment.

            Dean didn’t, because Dean was staring at the motel, tapping his thumbs on the steering wheel, lost in thought.

            Sam leaned forward slightly. “Dean?”

            He shook himself, hard, turning toward Sam. “What?”

            A wash of sympathy filtered through Sam; he knew the look, eyes crinkling at the corners, mouth tipping down to one side. That was the same expression Dean always wore, unconsciously, when was anticipating; when his mind was plotting scenarios, none of them good, all of them distinctly possible.

            “We should go.” Sam said, and Dean nodded, all grim resolve and false certainty, gunning it out onto a deserted road and heading west toward the outskirts of town. Sam watched the buildings peeling past, a lonely white plastic bag skirling across the road, gobbled up under the tires.

            Dragging the duffle out from under the seat, Sam pulled out the archangel blade and laid it across his knees, running his knuckles over the polished silver surface. He wasn’t immune to the knowledge that he’d lost them the blade in the first place, dropping it in the warehouse where he’d killed Raphael and rescued Dean. Having it back in his hands brought on memories of Memphis, and that warehouse…the first place he’d ever had a seizure.

            The folded triangle of paper with the spell to open Purgatory was still in his back pocket. Sam knew the reversal, too, to close the door again; he’d memorized it on their way to stop the dragons, the day the Mohera had escaped.

            Just in case, Sam pulled the pad of paper out of his jacket and, eyes closed, scripted it from memory. They wouldn’t have margin for error, and if a seizure put Sam down for the count mid-game, he wanted to give Dean the leverage to open and close the door again.

            “What’s that?” Dean glanced over at him.

            “Spell to close Purgatory.” Sam clamped the pencil between his lips and handed the spell to Dean. “In case anything happens.”

            Dean looked like he wanted to protest, but he just took the paper, arched up to tuck it into his back pocket, then relaxed and ran a hand through his hair. The stress lines beside his eyes were deepening as they hit the edges of town and rolled west, not really sure where they were going, or what was waiting for them there.

            “What’s the plan?” Sam asked, leaning his arm on the windowsill.

            “There is no plan, Sam.” Dean’s voice was empty, and quiet.

            They drove for another ten minutes before cresting a hill far outside the outer edge of Baker City, and it was right there: a huge silo, a sprawling building attached to it, the fresh coat of paint on both tossing back light from the setting sun.

            The granary was bigger than Sam had imagined it would be, and he felt a churning in his guts at the thought of chasing Kaila through it.

            Dean pulled the Impala off-road, toward a copse of trees to their left. He parked her and climbed out, and Sam was a couple steps behind him, watching confused as Dean hopped up on the hood and leaned back against the windshield.

            “Uh, Dean. What are you doing?”

            “We’re goin’ in when it’s dark.” Dean said, tucking his hands into his jacket pockets. Sam hopped up on the hood beside him, resting his feet on the bumper and leaning back to stare at the bottoms of the leaves. With the wind rolling over them, just off the side of chilly, Sam closed his eyes and breathed deeply.

            It was a few minutes before Dean spoke. “We never did buy those fireworks and shoot’ em off after Essex.”

It took Sam a minute to remember the conversation they’d had, about taking a few days off after that case. “It’s not like we’ve head time, Dean. Our lives have been hell since then.”

“Yeah, I know.” Dean propped himself up on his elbows. “Probably coulda burned a couple fields down if we’d given it a shot, though.”

Sam chuckled. “How about, if this whole thing works out the way I’m praying it does—let’s never try that.”

Dean face-shrugged. “Here, lemee see the sword.”

Sam opened the duffle on his stomach and passed the weapon to Dean; watched his brother hold it up, flip it around and give it a close once-over before he holstered it in the belt loop of his jeans.

Silence wrapped around them for a few more minute before Dean started moving around; elbowing Sam in the ribs while he wrestled for something in his pocket. Sam cracked one eye open and saw Dean flip open his phone, click down the list of contacts, and punch the dial button.

Sam sat up when Dean put the phone on speaker.

“Yeah?” The voice on the other end was warped by static, but Sam knew it anyway, knew it well enough to breathe easier, for the time being.

“Bobby, it’s us.” Dean said, keeping his eyes on the granary.

            “S’good to hear your voice, Dean.” Bobby sounded relieved. “Heard they put the entire state on lockdown. You boys all right?”

            “Oh, we’re awesome.” Dean said, his voice probably sharper than the conversation called for. But that was Dean, all rough edges and gruffness and bluster and if he wasn’t mad at Bobby, he was mad at Kaila, he was mad at _something_ , and that was enough to make his entire attitude turn to barbed wire in a second. “Just about to put our heads on the chopping block. Again.”

            A beat of quiet. “Kaila?”

            “We found her.” Sam explained. “In a granary outside of Baker City. The spell was pretty close, Bobby. Within fifteen miles.”

            “Figgered it would be.” Sam heard a chair scooting in the background. “So, what’s next?”

            “Storm the base, rescue John, slit Kaila’s throat.” Dean’s answer was flippant, but the hard undercurrent told Sam that his brother was really thinking it out, weighing it, the details and the possibilities.

            Bobby was silent for almost a full minute. “Don’t s’pose there’s any talking you boys outta this fool plan, is there?”

            Sam frowned; for a split second he thought he heard Bobby’s voice break. “Bobby? You okay?”

            “Like hell am I _okay_!” Bobby exploded, so loudly Dean held the phone out away from them. “You two yahoos are the only thing I got left is this ass-ended, upside-down deck’a cards we call a _world_ , and you’re askin’ me to sit here on my hands while you all go up against the biggest badass you’ve faced since _Lucifer_? You think I might be a little _upset about that_?”

            “Bobby, calm down—” Dean started.

            “Don’t you tell me to calm down, ya idjit!” Bobby’s reply was so venomous Dean cocked his head back and shifted his jaw. “Why I even let you two walk out my front door is beyond me—I should locked you both in that panic room!”

            “Sam’s busted outta there before.” Dean said proudly, which was a sharp contrast to how Sam felt about those particular memories.

            “You get cocky with me, and when I get my hands on you, boy, I will staple those fish lips’a yours together, Dean.”

            Dean mouthed _fish lips?_ at Sam, who just lifted one shoulder.

            “You boys listen up.” Bobby said, and he had that man-in-charge voice that made Sam sit up straighter, and Dean moved the phone a little closer. “I would give anything to keep you outta this fight. It’s a bad idea and you’re not so dumb that you missed that. Means you know it’s bad out there, and you’re goin’ anyway.”

            “Me and Sam, the walking definition of insanity.” Dean said.

            “Shut your trap, I’m talkin’.” Bobby snapped, and Dean held up one hand in a gesture of submission before he realized Bobby couldn’t see it. “I’ve watched a lotta good friends die in my lifetime. _Good people_ who didn’t deserve the hand that life dealt out to ’em. But you two are the poster boys of bad hands.”

            “Tell me about is.” Sam murmured, scooting closer to Dean and giving himself a better angle on the phone. “We’ll be fine, Bobby.”

            “Don’t you do that!” Bobby snarled. “Don’t you lie to me like that, Sam.”

            Sam swallowed against the realization that Bobby had felt it, too; that end-of-an-age foreboding that’d been hanging over their heads all day. His own instincts, Sam didn’t trust; not half the time, anyway. But he relied on Bobby like he relied on Dean, one finger to the pulse of the world. They all acted and reacted together, Sam and Dean and, including Bobby and Castiel, before, they’d been a team.

            Still were, Sam reminded himself. It was just broken and limping and right now, it was in danger. Worse danger than he’d realized, if Bobby was picking up on it.

            “We gotta do this, Bobby.” Dean insisted. “You know, whatever this is—family, love, a whole bucket of crazy—we’ve been living in it, fighting for it, for a long time. About time we died for something that matters, right?”

            Surprised laughter burst out of Sam; and crackled over the speaker, too. Sam could picture Bobby shaking his head, eyes sliding shut, almost smiling.

            “Now, that’s irony for ya.” And there was definitely a smile in Bobby’s voice.

            “It’s a charm.” Dean said cockily. In a heartbeat, his mood shifted to serious. “Listen, Bobby, if this deal goes south, you keep fighting. You hear me? Just ’cause we’re gone doesn’t mean you’ve gotta be, too.”

            The moment of good humor vanished; Sam watched Dean, forehead scrunching, feeling the pain and regret for his brother welling up until it had to be seeping out of his pores. He knew how much Dean hated goodbyes, however temporary.

            The phone went muffled like it had been flipped over, and Sam heard something he knew he wasn’t supposed to hear; half a sigh, half a sob. A sound he’d never heard out of Bobby before, couldn’t imagine Bobby making, and he knew Bobby had done his best to muffle it. Sam could imagine him with his hand clapped over his mouth, his eyes screwed shut under the shadow of his trucker’s cap.

            Sam glanced at Dean, and saw Dean’s eyes close, too. A wet trail found its way through the scruff on his cheek.

            Sam’s neck flushed. He stared down at his hands.

            Finally, the phone clattered, Bobby’s voice coming back over the line. “What do you boys need me to do?” He sounded totally composed, totally in-control. Winchesters buried feelings like dead bodies; Bobby did, too.

            Dean didn’t open his eyes. “Pray. If you still know how your praying knees work, Bobby, just get down and ask those angels to come help us, just this one time. The way Cass used to.”

            “I can do that.”

            It was the same tone Bobby had used when Sam and Dean were facing Jo’s death, with Ellen shell-shocked beside them. It was a voice that took the weight, carried it over, and promised an answer.

            Even if there weren’t any answers to give.

            “What about you? Last I checked, you’d said a couple prayers in your time.” Bobby added.

            “I don’t—I don’t remember how.” Dean admitted, hollowly.

            “Just ask.” Sam said. “It doesn’t have to be fancy, Dean. Come on, we called Castiel a million times.”

            “That’s ’cause Cass _knew_ us. This is different.”

            “Don’t have to be.” Bobby’s voice was gruff but gentle.

            Dean sniffed and tilted his head down. “We gotta go. We’ll catch you on the flipside, Bobby.”

            “Dean, wait—”

            Dean flipped the phone closed, dropped it into Sam’s open hands and slid off the car. “Let’s go, Sam.”

            Sam stared at the phone, then glanced up at Dean, just in time to see him rake an arm across his eyes before he got behind the wheel.

            Sam hopped off the bumper and tossed the cell phone into the glove compartment on his way in, keeping the duffle on his lap. “So? What now?”

            “Now, nothing.” Dean threw the Impala out of park and flattened the pedal to the floor. “Now we finish it.”

            The Impala lagged for a minute, then shot across the grass, tires flying through dips in the dirt, and Sam kept his hand on the top of the door, his window rolled down, bracing himself as the car’s erratic heaving threatened to sling him into Dean’s shoulder.

            There was a gate that circled the granary, secured by a padlock and chain. Dean didn’t seem to think twice about it; aimed right for the split between the two sections of fence. Sam braced himself for the impact as the Impala’s snout busted the chain in half and threw the doors wide.

            If his window hadn’t been open, letting in the fresh night air, Sam probably wouldn’t’ve have heard it. And it was so quiet he almost missed it, anyway. But his brain, already geared up for a fight and putting his senses on high alert, picked up the sound of a cell phone ringing.

            Right under the car.

            “ _Dean_!” Sam flung himself across the seat, popping the driver’s side door and shoving his brother out, piling after him, tangled up in the duffle bag.

            The sonic blast ripped the Impala apart, catapulting her sky-high inside a bloom of fire. Sam saw it, in a dizzy, half-muffled world of pain, flipping and rolling until his back struck the fence. He scrambled onto his knees in an instant, staring up as the huge plume of smoke started to fade, scattered by the wind.

            “ _No_!” Dean, three feet away, scuffed and bleeding from the impact with the stunted grass, was already trying to crawl toward the wreckage of the car: apart from the journal that was still inside the duffle bag, it was one of the last ties they had to their family. Smoldering to a crisp in pieces around them.

            “Dean, stop!” Sam staggered after him, dropping behind his brother and wrapping an arm around Dean’s chest, hauling him back. “It’s too late!”

            The bisected pieces of the Impala sliced fissures into the ground: bumpers, doors, what was left of the body. Acrid smoke stung Sam’s lungs and his eyes as he held onto Dean, held him back, and they watched their home burn to a shell in second.

            “No, no, God…” Dean swiped a hand down his face. “I’ll kill her. I’ll _kill her_!” He struggled to break Sam’s grip.

            “Dean, stop. Think. Think!” Sam dragged his brother around. “That was an _I.E.D._ Homemade. There could be more of them out here. We have to focus. Dean!” He shook Dean’s shoulder. “Focus.”

            Dean’s gaze planted on his, bloodlust and fury swimming in his eyes, and then dimming. After a few seconds, he stood up, pulled Sam to his feet and grabbed the sides of his head, thumbing across something on Sam’s face that hurt like a bitch.

            “Dude, you shoved us out of a car going at _least_ fifty. What’re you, nuts?”

            Sam shrugged; he could tell Dean was trying his best not to look over his shoulder, not to see the smoldering remains of the Impala.

            “Let’s go.” Dean grabbed the duffle and marched toward the granary without looking back.

            Sam felt as though the wreckage was lighting the tears into flame as they rolled down his cheeks; worse than a car-crash, worse than anything any demon, bad oil-change or carjacker had done. The car their dad had driven; the car Sam had sometimes allowed himself to imagine his mother driving, her blond hair floating on the breeze. One of the few places Sam had ever seen Dean happy, or felt happy himself.

            Consumed.

            “Sammy, c’mon!” Dean was almost to the door.

            Sam wiped his nose on his sleeve and left the Impala behind.

 

 


	6. Chapter 6

_June 23 rd, 2012_

_Wheat Granary Outside of Baker City, Oregon_

 

They armed up outside the door.

Pistols in their waistbands, shotguns in their hands—not loaded with rocksalt, for once. Consecrated iron rounds, because that was all they had that hadn’t been stashed in the trunk. They each took a side of the door, Dean with the duffle bag’s strap slung across his chest. He met Sam’s eyes, grabbed the door knob, and nodded.

Yanked it open. Sam went in first and Dean covered him, shutting the door on the smell of smoke and the heat of the fire before he cased the place.

The granary was huge.

            Longer than it was wide, support beams made outta pure steel. The ceiling arced over their heads, coming to a point thirty, thirty-five feet up. There was a cat-walk built into the walls, one staircase leading up to it. A couple of bulky machines were crammed in across the room, lights off, totally quiet but still putting off heat from being used recently. Other than that, and the corner office with a bay window on the front, the place was stacked with pallets of grain and flour.

            And felt weirdly empty.

            Dean’s nerves were still tingling, dumped with adrenaline and humming pure, sweet righteous _fury_. He could still feel the way the ground had rocked under him when the I.E.D. went off, and every time he blinked he saw the Impala going up in flames behind his eyes. It just added to his rage, made him feel like he was about to bust his skin and turn into the Tasmanian Devil, rip the whole warehouse apart.

            He made himself focus; Sam was right. Sam was still bleeding, looked like he’d been rolling in the mud. Sam needed somebody to watch his back, and Dean was the guy to do it. After one last sweep to make sure he had the archangel blade strapped in his belt loop and the Colt tucked into his waistband—he didn’t think he’d need to use it, but, hey, they were here to spring monsters, and sometimes things with monsters got pretty dicey—he nudged Sam forward.

            “Dude, go. I’ll cover you.”

Sam stepped out from under the shadow of the catwalk over their heads and almost took a bullet to the foot. They ducked behind separate columns, trying to shrink down and make themselves smaller targets. Dean took the risk and swiveled around for a look.

            Caught a flash of someone moving on the catwalk across the room, before the guy’s head disappeared behind one of the huge machines.

            Dean sucked his bottom lip in, whistling lowly, one note. Sam’s head turned toward him and Dean tucked the shotgun between his knees, holding up both hands in the military sign-code their dad had taught them. Telling Sam where the shooter was, and telling him he’d been going in.

            Sam’s mouth pulled down on one side, and Dean didn’t need sign language to read the I-Don’t-Like-This look.

            Dean shot him another sign: _Cover me_.

            Sam’s shoulders slumped but came up again, just as fast, when he pulled the shotgun up to his chest and nodded.  

            Dean cocked the shotgun over his elbow, studied the catwalk for a second, then motioned to Sam: _On your six._

Sam slid his foot out gingerly, then whipped around the pole, leveled the shotgun and started firing.

            Dean bolted, half-sliding across the smooth concrete floor with retaliatory gunfire popping in his eardrums. He went straight for the stairs on his side of the catwalk, winging around the edge and hauling ass up to the second floor. The whole thing rattled and banged with his footfalls as he ran, keeping low in case this guy didn’t take the huge distraction of Sam trying to put a round in his chest.

            Dean saw him from a distance once he’d crossed the stretch of catwalk wrapping around the front of the building. The guy was on one knee, taking aim for Sam’s head.

            He spun toward Dean, way too slow. Dean smacked into him shotgun-first, wrestling him to the ground and pinning him, one knee on the guy’s chest. He punched him out cold and disarmed him.

            There was a ringing report of gunfire from the first floor and Dean spun off his knees, grabbing the railing. “Sam!”

            “I’m fine.” Sam’s reply was brittle and fast; Dean looked down and saw the crumpled body of another guy, another one of Kaila’s hunters, dead on the ground at Sam’s feet. Like the guy had tried to rush a six-foot-four moose-man.

            Kaila really needed to be a little more selective in her backup.

            Dean jumped the railing, landing on one of the machines and sliding off onto a pallet beside the corner office. Sam joined him, grim and quiet, pushing Dean around and unzipping the duffle bag that was strapped to his chest. He started reloading in silence while Dean took a look around.

            “Is it just me, or does this whole place seem a little empty to you?”

            Sam yanked the zipper up, jolting Dean forward a step. “Definitely. There aren’t that many places to hide.” He gripped the shotgun tight, stepping up to Dean’s side. “I don’t like this, Dean.”

            “Yeah, you and me both.” Dean swept another look around the room, his eyes picking up something he’d missed the first time. He frowned. “Huh.”

            Sam blinked. “What?”

            Dean crossed the room, tapping the back of his hand against a sign on one of the poles and glancing at Sam. “Primary storage: basement.”

            “Maybe that’s where the hunters are.” Sam guessed.

            “Yeah, you’d think they woulda come upstairs when they heard the showdown at the O.K. Corral.” Dean muttered. “No honor among thieves. C’mon, Sammy, let’s hunt ourselves a hunter.”

            Dean was two steps toward the door on the back wall when Sam’s shout smacked his ears: “ _Dean, watch out_!”   

            Dean was already spinning around, but it looked like Sam’s warning had been more of a reaction than anything; he’d already grabbed the person who was making a jump for Dean’s exposed back.

            Sam managed to hook Kaila with one arm around her throat and the other around her waist, swinging her around, away from Dean, and putting her on her knees on the cold concrete floor. Dean circled around Sam’s side, pinning his sights on Kaila’s head. She wrestled Sam’s grip, but she wasn’t going anywhere, not with the angle he had on her.

            “Where is he?” Dean snarled.

            Sam pulled Kaila’s head back with his fist in her hair and, yeah, that had to hurt. Dean just couldn’t find it in him to feel sorry for her.

            “Go to Hell.” Kaila hissed between clenched teeth.

            “Been there, done that, sister.” Dean filled her face with the muzzle of the shotgun. “But, hey, if _you_ want a tour…”

            He stopped, because the red haze finally skimmed his vision, and he was able to get a good look at her.

            Two months had changed a lot, and not just for them; Kaila had dropped probably fifty pounds. Down in the sewers in Japan, she’d been lean, but pretty fit. Now she looked downright sick, her wrists were so skinny Dean probably could’ve touched his thumb to the first knuckle of his middle finger if he tried to wrap his hands around them. Her cheekbones were slicing through her face and her eyes looked sunken inside her skull. She looked—literally—like one of the things they hunted.

            More than that; the last time Dean had seen her, she’d been a spitfire wad of cocky and confident. Down on her knees with Sam half-crouched behind her, she looked anything _but_ , this time. Even melting Dean down with the world’s hottest glare, there was fear in her eyes; the same kind of fear Dean had seen in the eyes of every kid they’d met on the job, with a monster under the bed that the Winchesters had ganked.

            All in all, didn’t paint a pretty picture; didn’t match the baby warlord scenario Dean had been amping up for all day.

            Dean lowered the shotgun and crouched, grabbing Kaila’s chin in one hand and forcing her head up. “Where’s John?”

            “Why isn’t he with you?” Sam added.

            “He’s not _dead_.” Her accent made the words sound condescending, like she was one step ahead of them. And Dean had to hand it to her, there was a possibility she was. It was looking pretty slim at this point, ’cause she wasn’t coming across as the girl with the plan this time.

            “So, tell us where we can find him,” Dean growled, tightening his grip. “And maybe we’ll kill you _fast_. ’Cause right now, I’m leaning more toward poking you fulla holes before we waste ya.”

            Dean met Sam’s worried eyes briefly over her head, winked at him quickly and focused back on Kaila when she twisted free of his hand.

            “You won’t kill me.” She sneered. “You can’t.”

            “Oh, really?” Dean kept his tone flat. “And why’s that, again?”

            “Because you’re Sam and Dean Winchester. You’re too soft, you don’t kill humans.” There was a little of the cockiness Dean had been expecting; but there was something a little more powerful than that, in the glance she put on Sam over her shoulder. She was _nervous_.

            “ _Right_ , right.” Dean draped his wrist on his knee. “I think you missed the fine print on that contract, sweetheart. See, me and Sam, we _usually_ don’t kill humans. But sometimes we run into people—like our jackass grandfather, or, _you_ —and you’re the exception.” He let a feral smile tip across his lips. “Lucky you.”

            Kaila couldn’t do anything to hide her fear this time, shining straight out of her eyes. “He’s not dead. Your pet monster. He’s locked up with the others, I didn’t kill him. Let me go, and I’ll give him to you.”

            “Stage three: bargaining.” Dean said.

            “I’m not the only one who’s in danger!” Kaila snapped, wrenching against Sam’s hold. “This _thing_ smells out hunters. We’ve been running from it for months. It _killed. Everybody._ ”

            Well, talk about a viewpoint shifting. Dean had been bracing himself for a huge fight; but it looked like Kaila was the last line of defense and at this point, she wasn’t much of a threat. Her plan to kill them—I.E.D., her foot-soldiers—had bottomed out. She was up the creek, and for once, Sam and Dean had the upper hand.

            “I’m sorry all those people had to die.” Sam said, he sounded like he meant it, but when he glanced at Dean his eyes were flint-hard.

            “But things have gone too far already,” Dean picked up for him. “First you make a deal with Meg, and that falls through. Now you’ve got the Mohera chasing your tail, and you’ve got us,” He gestured between him and Sam, “Good and pissed.”

            “But you’re _Sam and Dean Winchester_.” Kaila said—like she knew a damned thing about who they were. “You’re supposed to _help me_.”

            “No.” Dean said; didn’t feel bad for saying it, didn’t feel any remorse, nothing. Just cold hard resolve. “You think we could ever _trust_ you? Huh?” He wrapped his hand around her throat. “Not a chance.”

            Sam let go at the same time Dean ripped Kaila to her feet, spinning her around and pinning her against the wall. She didn’t fight back, and holding her up with one arm Dean could feel how lightweight she really was. Big change from when she’d been crushing his lungs, sitting on his back in the sewer.

            “Dean,” Sam said, suddenly, and he had that puppy-dog thing in his voice. “Hang on a second.”

            Dean leveled a warning look on him. “ _Sam._ ”

            The roof of the granary creaked, long and low; sounded like somebody running their fingernails down a chalkboard. They all looked up—Sam, Dean, Kaila—listening to that high-pitch whine turn into a staccato groan.

            “Okay.” Dean said, lowly. “That can’t be good.”

            A huge chunk of the wall beside the door ripped out and disappeared, leaving a gaping hole with the slow-burning fire from the Impala still whipping through the wreckage outside. That wasn’t what got Dean moving, though, unlocking his limbs, throwing Kaila toward the corner office and grabbing his shotgun off the floor; it was that _wrong_ , empty, _cold_ feeling.

            “ _Mohera_!” He aimed for the hole and backed after Sam and Kaila toward the office, keeping his eyes on the hole. For a few seconds, against the backdrop of the fire, he saw a huge hulking shape turning toward them, a white glassy eye turning toward him, and Dean’s stomach took a nosedive into his knees. Dammit, he _hated_ monsters.

            Dean backed into the office and slammed the door against the feeling of something huge and heavy smacking into the granary, shaking it right down to the concrete floor. He braced his back against the door, arms spread out—force of habit. Not like it’d do much good, at this point.

            “This is it!” Dean shouted at Kaila; she was crouched in the corner, looked like ninety-eight pounds of nothing. “That _thing_ is out there and we’ve only got one chance at this. Are you gonna help us, or not? Tell us where you’re keeping John!”

            Kaila looked up with a bitter smile. “There’s nothing we can do now, Winchester. If you’d listened to me, before, then maybe we could’ve run before it was too late. But the Mohera’s here to kill us. Like it killed the others.”

            Dean lurched away from the door snarling, tearing his hands back through his hair, but before he could make a move on Kaila, Sam pinned her in the corner of the room with his arm across her throat.

            “ _Tell us where he is_!”

            The door behind Dean exploded off its hinges, shooting backward into the granary. Dean spun around with the shotgun up.

            Stopped dead, staring.

            “Looks like you boys could use a hand.” Gwen Campbell grinned at them, leaning her shoulder against the doorpost. She jerked her thumb over her shoulder. “He called me. Said you needed backup.”

            Dean switched his stare onto Bobby, who looked ten kinds of sheepish, standing behind Gwen with three angels flanking him: Ciel, Gaiaphage and Sabreael. Castiel’s bunk-buddies.

            A grin split across Dean’s face. “No way.”

            “‘ _Yeah way_ ’, kid.” Bobby’s smile softened up. “Guess my prayin’ knees still work after all.”

            “Contrary to popular human belief, you do not need to kneel on the floor in order to pray.” Sabreael butted in.

            “Oh, well, this guy fills our quota for a slow learner.” Dean nodded to him, ignoring the curious look the angel tipped back toward him. “Did you guys take out the Mohera?”

            “No.” Ciel shook her dark, curly hair out of her face. “We’ve scripted Enochian wards on the building. But eventually, it will find a way in. It smells monsters, and it wants to tunnel in and claim their souls.”

            “That’s not gonna happen.” Sam let Kaila loose and hauled her to her feet, keeping a hold of her with his huge hand locking both of her wrists together. “It’s already killed ten thousand people. And all of Kaila’s hunters.”

            “Then its power is already beyond imagine.” Gaiaphage rumbled.

            “Oh, I can imagine it.” Dean swept a look over all of them. “Four hunters, three angels and a buncha monsters. I think this is it. This is as good as it gets. We gotta face this thing. Right here, right now, make a stand. And hope to hell it works.”

            Sam shrugged. “I’m in.”

            Good ol’ Sammy.

            “Not like I’m gonna say no.” Bobby scratched his jaw. “Even if I still think you’re both a few slices short of a full pie.”

            Dean made a mental note to get some pie when they were done with this. “All right. Anybody know where the monsters are?”

            “I can feel them.” Gaiaphage said. “I will show you.”

            “Lead the way, Marley.”

            Sam thrust Kaila at Bobby in passing. “Keep an eye on her for us, would you?”

            Kaila looked a little terrified at being in Bobby’s capable hands; made sense. She’d slit his best friend’s throat a couple months ago, and Bobby wasn’t exactly the softest guy in creation.

            Gaiaphage led them through the door on the backside of the granary and down a flight of stairs that cornered, went right. They hit the floor in a room that was so dry Dean didn’t even have to guess if it was artificial; probably to keep the stored bags of grain from getting moldy.

            “Where is he?” Sam asked, squinting in the darkness.

            Gaiaphage snapped his fingers, and a prism of light shot out of his hand, highlighting the corners of the room. Dean saw dark shapes slinking back from the light, melting into the corners of the room and cowering behind lumpy sacks on wooden pallets.

            “John?” Dean’s voice rippled back to him, caught in by the thick walls.

            He heard something, sounded like a vampire, hissing at him; didn’t pay attention to it. He figured the angel could hold off anything that tried to sink its teeth into him and Sam. He stepped out, away from the light.

            Sam smacked Dean’s chest with the back of his hand. “Dean.”

            Funny how Sam could recognize the man they were looking for, sort of propped up against the wall with his chin tucked down. Dean glanced at Sam, then set the shotgun down and ran, dropping beside the Shifter.

            “John! Hey. Hey, hey, look at me.” Dean put one hand on his throat, felt the pulse underneath, felt relief pour over him.

            “He looks pretty bad,” Sam commented softly, kneeling beside Dean.

            John stirred, like Sam’s vice was pulling him back; he picked up his head, the light catching and falling across the planes of his face. He looked scruffier than Dean had ever seen him, almost a full beard and those same tired eyes.

            “Hey, boys.”

            Sam blinked, hard and fast. “Hi, dad.”

            Dean couldn’t keep the smile off his face. “You tough son of a bitch. Here.” He pulled John’s arm across his shoulders and helped him up, holding him against the wall with one hand on his chest. “You good?”

            “Well, I’m dying for a burger and some caffeine.” John said. “Otherwise, yeah, son. I’m just fine.”

            Dean was really gonna have to talk to him about not getting their wires crossed. But that could wait. “It’s good to see you, man.”

            “How did you two find me?” John asked. “She’s been moving us around so long, I was starting to think…” He let it trail off. Dean felt a little irritated, a little stung that John hadn’t had faith in them to keep their promise and get to him.

            “It was, uh, it was Bobby.” Sam said. “He used a spell.”

            “Sam’s idea.” Dean added.

            “Dean broke us in.”

            Dean slid a look toward Sam and bit down a smile; just like old times, lobbing the praise into each other’s court in front of their dad.

            John grabbed them both by the sides of their necks. “Good boys.” He gave them a quick shake, then held out his hand. “Got a knife on you, Dean?”

            Dean flipped out his butterfly knife and held it out to John; the Shifter crouched and sawed off the short rope anchoring him to a pipe that ran along the base of the wall.

            “What’s going on up there?” John jerked his chin toward the ceiling, passing the knife back to Dean.

            “The Mohera’s here. The angels put up wards to hold it off, but eventually it’ll break through.” Sam explained quickly.

            “I figured. This thing is so hungry for souls now, it can’t stop.” John looked from Dean to Sam and back again, his eyes shadowed with pain. “I heard them talking. Ten thousand people dead in one day.”

            “It’s pretty bad,” Dean said, knowing it was an understatement.

            “That’s on us.” John tapped a hand to his chest. “Kaila brought us here, and it followed her. Largest congregation of hunters and monsters together since anyone can remember. It’s a smorgasbord of souls.”

            “Awesome.” Dean nodded to Sam. “Sammy here found a way to kick its ass.”

            John’s wide eyes moved to Sam. “You did _what_?”

            Dean saw the back of Sam’s neck flush in the light. “The journal the dragons left in the sewer. I picked up the incantation for opening Purgatory off one of the other pages, the way my dad taught me.”

            “Smart kid.” John said appreciatively, and then he got serious. “Even with angels on our side, we’re outnumbered and we’re outgunned. This thing’s got a mean-streak a mile wide.”

            “Have you fought it?” Sam asked; he sounded really, morbidly curious.

            “Once, since Kaila got her hands on me.” John replied. “We crossed paths with it up near Juneau, Alaska. Took out half of the monsters she had in one fight.”

            “That’s a crapload’a souls.” Dean scratched the back of his head.

            “Tell me about it. This thing is so hungry, it’ll eat anything.” John rubbed a hand over his jaw. “But that might help us.”

            “How could that _possibly_ help us?” Sam demanded.

            John shot Sam that classic On-The-Edge-Of-A-Fight look. “The hungrier it is, the more distracted it’s going to be. Might give us a window to hit it.”

            Sam looked like he wanted to come back on that one, but he didn’t have anything. He loosened up. “So, what’s the plan?”

            “Rally everyone and dive in.” John said. “Cut everybody loose down here. They know what’s at stake, some of them might be in for the fight.”

            It felt totally wrong to Dean; he was used to hunting these suckers down, not setting them free. He crouched in the shadows beside this girl, couldn’t’ve been much older than fifteen, long red hair and a freaked-out expression.

            “I’m not gonna hurt ya.” Dean muttered, cutting the rope that was looped around her neck. “What’s your name?”

“Lucille. Everybody calls me Lucy, though.”

“All right, Lucy.” Dean stripped the collar off. “So, what’s your poison?”

            She got what he meant. “Vampire.” She rubbed the raw red abrasion on her throat. “Three weeks, now.”

            Three freakin’ weeks. “How’d it happen?”

            “Kaila sent another vampire after me, to make me useful, I guess. ’Cause I’m fast. I’m in track and field.”

            Dean’s blood started boiling. “Been there, done that. It blows.” He stood up and offered her his hand, pulling her to her feet. “You feed yet?”

            Lucy shuddered. “I didn’t want to. It was totally gross. She made me do it.”

            Tick off another reason Dean was going to slaughter that bitch six ways from Sunday. “You up for a fight?”

            Lucy rubbed her arms. “Maybe. Can you promise me something?”

            “I’m listening.”

            “If I _do_ fight, and that monster doesn’t kill me…you have to do it. Put a stake through my heart, or throw garlic at me, or whatever.” She shuddered. “I don’t wanna be Bella Swan.”

            Well, points for this chick. “We’ll take care’a you. I promise.”

            She gave him a watery smile. “Then, I guess I’ll try.”

            By that point, Sam and John had cut the rest of the monsters loose; there were maybe ten, fifteen of them left. Hard to tell when half of them were still huddled up outside of the light.

            “All right, listen up.” John said, and Sam and Dean weren’t the only ones who snapped to attention. “You have two choices. You can try to sneak out past the Mohera, and make a run for it. Or you can stand with us and help us finish it.”

            “You can’t kill that thing!” One of the monsters tossed in. “We’ve been trying for months now. It’s a lost cause!”

            “You’re right, we can’t kill it.” Sam stepped up to John’s side and turned to face them. “But we have a spell that can send it back. Back to Purgatory.”

            “For good?” Lucy piped up.

            “Maybe.”

            “Why should we trust a hunter? You’re all a bunch of backstabbing, self-righteous dickweeds!” Dean couldn’t tell where the shout had come from, but he saw Gaiaphage bristle and Sam clench his jaw.

            “Hey!” John snarled, and his voice shut up the entire room. “That’s my son you’re talking to. Watch your mouth.”

            No one had anything to say to Sam after that.

            “So, are you with us?” John asked. “If we can push the Mohera back into the pit, this can end. For all of us.”

            “I’ll do it.” Lucy piped up, still rubbing her arms.

            The rest of the monsters pitched in, one-by-one; most of them sounded like they were doing it with their heels dragging and a knife in their windpipe, but it was better than nothing.

            “Then let’s suit up. We’ve got a job to do, let’s get it done.” John led the way up the stairs, Gaiaphage right behind him, fisting his hand over and killing the light. Pretty nifty power. Dean and Lucy walked side-by-side toward the stairs and Dean wondered if he was gonna have a baby vampiress shadowing him for a while.

            Sam was waiting for him at the bottom of the staircase. “Hey—” He did a double take when he saw Lucy.

            “Hi. Lucille.” She waved at him awkwardly.

            “One of Kaila’s pet projects.” Dean explained.

            Sam looked at her sympathetically, then at Dean. “We really need a plan, here, Dean.” They headed up the stairs, following the band of monsters.

            “I’m working on it.” Dean said.

            “I…might be able to help.” Lucy said, and both brothers stopped, staring at her. She rubbed the side of her neck, slowly. “I don’t know if this matters at all or anything, but when I first got turned, before they branded me, that monster we fought, the Mohera or whatever, it was, like—talking to me. I mean, there weren’t any words, you know? But I got this _feeling_ from it, like…” She trailed off, frowning.

            Sam shifted down a step, closer to her. “Like what?”

            She met his eyes. “Like it was scared of fire. I kept seeing Purgatory, whenever it tried to talk to me…I think maybe because of what it saw down there, it’s scared of fire.”

            Dean tipped his mouth down. “We can work with that. C’mon.” He hustled up the stairs with the two of them right behind him, shoving open the door at the top, stepping out into a room that felt really _humid_.

            Which was weird; but when he standing in it for a few seconds, Dean realized it was power humming off the Enochian sigils on the walls. He scanned the room and saw Bobby standing with Kaila and the angels near the office; he pushed his way through the monsters to join them.

            “There any gasoline around here?” He directed the question at Kaila, who pretended to be studying the floor and didn’t answer him. “Hey!”

            “What’s going on?” John asked, flanking him.

            Dean didn’t stop glaring at Kaila. “We need to make Molotov cocktails. Anything flammable we can throw at this thing. It’s scared of fire.”

            John nodded. “Good. There’s a van parked around back, should be some gas cans in there. Make it fast. And take an angel with you to watch your back.”

            “Wait, they can see the Mohera?” Dean demanded.

            “All celestial and extrasensory beings can witness the monster’s true form.” Gaiaphage said.

            “Be careful, Deano.” John said, turning back to Bobby.

            That was easier said than done; even with Gaiaphage covering him, Dean felt like eyes were watching him from every side the second he stepped out the side door of the granary. Luckily, Kaila’s van was parked nearby; he popped the back and found a couple red box-shaped gas jugs. He tucked them under his arms and grabbed a couple more in each hand, ignoring that vibration of power coming from somewhere behind him.

            By the time they got back inside the protection of the wards, Gaiaphage looked exhausted and Dean was wired so tight he almost jumped out of his skin when Sam asked him if he needed help.

            They raided the entire granary, finding old Coke and beer bottles and a couple vials that had been used for God-knew-what. A group of six—three monsters, Sam, Dean and Gwen—locked themselves in the office and started throwing the cocktails together.

            Sam and Dean took up one corner, going through the familiar motions; Dean wished it could help the way it did on normal hunts, but his brain was moving way faster than his hands, knowing what was out there.

            “Whelp,” Dean set one of the finished Molotovs on the floor and twisted a rag for another one. “This is it.”

            “Yeah.” Sam agreed quietly. “It is.” He was a couple of bottles ahead of Dean.

            “Pretty ironic, right?” When Sam looked up at him, forehead wrinkling, Dean pointed between the two of them. “You and me, best hunters in the world, working with monsters?”

            “Dean.” Sam hesitated. “It’s temporary.”

            Dean filled the bottle with gasoline. “Everything’s temporary, Sam.”

           

 


	7. Chapter 7

_June 23 rd, 2012_

_Wheat Granary Outside of Baker City, Oregon_

 

It was weird, the way everything got really quiet right before a battle.

            When Sam and Dean pushed through the doorway of the corner office, arms loaded down with Molotov cocktails, Bobby was standing guard over Kaila in a corner with Ciel beside him, and John was running something over with the monsters and the other two angels—battle strategy, probably. Dean could feel the anticipation winging through his veins. Like he’d told Sam, _this was it_. And it was more and more real with every second that crawled by.

            Dean lined up the Molotovs on the edge of one of the machines, caught John’s eye and motioned with his head for John to follow them, and walked over to join Bobby, Kaila and Ciel.

            “We’re good,” Dean said.

            “How many’d you get done?” Bobby asked.

            “Twenty-seven.” Sam blew out a breath that ruffled his bangs. “It’s not much.”

            “The wards are breaking down,” Ciel added. “What do you want to do?”  

            “Let ’em fall,” Dean said, viciously. “Let the bastard in, and we fight. We fight to the last man.”

            Sam’s face lit up with the trace of a smile, right out of his eyes. Dean knew where that was coming from; if they had to face a soul-munching badass from the pit, at least they could watch each other’s backs. Finding Sam’s soul, dragging through the wall busting down and all the crap that’d come after—it was all for this.

            To have Sammy back.

            Ciel nodded. “We can dispel them for you. But we can offer no further help afterward.”

            Well, that imploded half his plan. Dean stared at her. “Wait, _what_? I thought you guys came here to help!”

            “We did, Dean.” At least she sounded sorry. “But the affairs of Heaven amongst humans ended the moment Castiel killed Zazerin. We brought hunters to you to repay the debt, and now it is finished.”

            “So, that’s it? Just a big, ‘Here’s your friends, now screw you guys’? We’re in the middle of a war, here!”

            “And do you have any idea what would happen, if the Mohera somehow managed to draw from our essence?” Ciel squared up to him, the kind of rough edges and righteous anger Dean had always seen in Castiel. “Dean. This is not something that we can risk. It is _your_ fight.”

            Dean jerked his head to one side to hide the anger that wanted to explode out from under his skin.

            “Dean…” Sam began.

            “So what?” Dean cut him off roughly. “Doesn’t change anything. We stick to the plan.”

            Kaila uncurled her head from her knees; without a bunch of people to boss around and monsters to control, she looked like what she really was: a broken down wreck of a little girl, somewhere between twenty and thirty and about as much of a threat as a newborn kitten. Dean couldn’t help pitying her.

            “That’s suicide.” She hissed through gritted teeth.

            “Yeah, I guess you’re right.” John agreed with a smile. “That’s just how the Winchesters do things, darlin’. Better get used to it.”

            “Or don’t.” Dean shrugged, ignoring Ciel and that sad look she was giving him. “You’re not gonna live long enough to appreciate it, anyway.” He held out his hand without taking his eyes off of Kaila. “Gimmie your belt, Sam.” Couldn’t say he minded that flicker of fear in Kaila’s eyes while Sam stripped off the belt and passed it to him. She almost flinched when Dean grabbed her arm and hauled her to her feet, knotting the belt around her thin wrists so tightly he was pretty sure he cut off the circulation nice and clean.

            “Hope that’s too tight.” Dean smirked, dragging her toward a utility closest beside the office and calling over his shoulder, “I’ll be right back.”

            The closet was three feet deep, four feet wide and they’d cleared out anything glass or chemical, including a can of air freshener that’d been useless and smelled pretty damned girly, to make the cocktails. Dean shoved Kaila against the wall and knelt beside her, tying the belt off on a pipe that ran up from floor to ceiling where the walls cornered.

            “Try slipping _those_ knots, sweetheart.” Dean clapped Kaila on the cheek.

            “So you’ll work with monsters, and not one of your own kind.” Kaila snarled, fidgeting against the belt. “That’s really heartwarming, Dean. You’re a pathetic excuse for a human being.”

            “Yeah, maybe I am. But y’know what?” Dean pitched his voice low. “I trust them more than I trust your sorry ass.”

            Kaila laughed, loudly, and it sounded forced. “And see, _that’s_ why you’ll never be much of a hunter, either. You throw your loyalties around like they mean nothing!”

            “You were using them, too. You don’t have a leg to stand on.”

            “ _Using_ monsters is different from _joining forces_ with them!”

            “Tell it to somebody who cares.” Dean gave the belt one last tug to secure it, then got this feet.

            “I should’ve killed you in Japan!” Kaila spat.

            Dean cocked an eye on her over his shoulder. “Missed your chance.”

            He almost bumped into Sam on the other side of the door; wondered for a half a second if his brother had been listening in. Then he realized Sam was staring across the room, looking pretty spacey.

            Dean’s limbs locked. _Seizure_.

            “Sam?”

            Sam turned his head toward Dean, barely, but it was enough. _Not a seizure, false alarm_. Dean let himself loosen up.

            After a minute, though, the staring thing got kinda creepy. “Whatcha lookin’ at, Sammy?” Dean asked, teasing.

            “Planning,” Sam replied distractedly. Then he shoved the back of Dean’s shoulder. “C’mere, I have an idea. Help me with these.”

            He walked under the belly of the catwalk, started pushing these huge full-body fans out into the open.

            “What, you want a Vogue look while we’re fighting for our lives?” Dean wandered after him.

            Sam shot him a bitchface, pushing the fan harder, toward the center of the room. “Airborne flour, an aerosol can and a lighter, Dean.”

            Dean put two-and-two together, his eyes widening. “Dude. _Wicked_.”

 

 

            Ten minutes later they had it set up, the bags of flour dumped in front of the huge fans, the fans turned off, Dean thumbing his Zippo by his thigh while he watched Sam shift the powder around with his boot.

            “Almost showtime.” Bobby walked over with the spell to close Purgatory crumpled in his fist. “Sam, you sure about this?”

            Sam nodded. “Yes, sir. I memorized it. Every word.”

            Bobby didn’t argue him on that one; if there was one thing you could count on Sam for, rain or shine, it was getting the bookworm stuff done. “Only problem we’re lookin’ at now is, gettin’ the damned door _open_. Spell asks for a couple liters’a monster blood, and that ain’t easy to come by.”

            Sam and Dean exchanged a glance.

            “You mean we’ll have to kill one of them.” Sam kept his voice down, looking at the monsters arming up, walking around, looking twitchy.

            “Ain’t no two ways about it.” Bobby said.

            “So, what, we just ask one of them?” Dean demanded. “How do you even _say_ that? ‘Hey, man, thanks for joining the cause, we’re gonna bleed you dry’?”

            A throat cleared from behind him. “You make it sound like that’s a bad thing.”

            Dean snapped around to face Lucy; she had her arms crossed behind her back and she was biting her lip white.

            “I’ll do it.” She said. “I’ll give you all the blood you need.”

            “Lucy—” Sam began.

            “Are you sure?” Dean cut him off; he had a deal with this girl. One way or another, she wasn’t making it out of this fight alive.

            She nodded vigorously. “I’m not a street-fighter. I was a cheerleader. I’ve never even touched anything bigger than a steak-knife before.” Her strangled laugh sounded like it was edging on a sob. “I just want to do one last good thing before I die. I want my life to mean something. And this way, it can.”

            Dean glanced at Bobby, and Bobby raised his eyebrows with one long, slow blink. “We need that blood, Dean.”

            Dean squared himself up. “All right, grab a couple monsters and head downstairs, see if you can work the spell.” Bobby nodded and left to rally a couple fangs, but Dean grabbed Lucy’s shoulder before she could follow him. “Hey. Thanks.”

            Lucy nodded, ducked his grip and ran after Bobby.

            Dean took a deep breath and let it out in one lung gust, looking up at Sam; found his brother watching him sideways through that mop of shaggy dark hair. He needed a haircut. Or two.

            “Ready, Sammy?”

            Sam had that distressed look on his face again. “Yeah.”

            They swung around to face the ripped-out hole where the door used to be, and like they were magnets, everybody else circled up behind them: the monsters, the angels, with Gwen and John beside Sam and Dean.

            Everybody was armed, everybody looked more or less ready with Molotovs in hand, and they were all screwed.

            Dean caught Ciel’s eye. “Punch it.”

            The angels phased out and reappeared by the front wall, slamming their palms into the Enochian sigils.

            The entire structure felt like it was buckling around them, groaning and bracketing down on itself. Dean rolled his eyes up as far as they could go; wondering if it was the Mohera or just angelic power sucking out of the room, making that noise.

            “Steady,” John murmured, and Dean couldn’t tell if the Shifter was talking to him or the monsters.

            He flicked the Zippo open, then snapped it closed.

            “It’s back.”

            John’s words were a warning and sort of a battle cry; Dean looked at the gap, couldn’t see anything, but the monsters around him went totally stiff, tense, focused down on the Mohera-made doorway.

            Dean felt the cold creep back inside of him. “John…”

            “Not yet.” John’s dark eyes were pinned on the Mohera; Dean figured as much, couldn’t actually see the thing.

            And then, snap of the fingers, one blink, it crossed a line.

            “Dean, now!” John howled.

            “Gwen! Sam! Let it rip!”

            Like they’d had a chance to rehearse it, or something, they both pulled the strings that were attached to the backs of the fans. The flour went flying airborne, and Sam held up the aerosol can, clicking the button down.

            Dean flicked the Zippo on, said a prayer—easier than he’d thought—and threw it.

            Aerosol turned the little flame into a flamethrower; fire caught the dry flour.

            The air inside the granary went white hot in a split-second, and Dean flinched back as the concussive burst of red-gold-blue socked against his eyes. The angels leaned forward, hands up, putting out some kinda angelic forcefield; the fire swept out through the air and Dean more felt than heard, this sound, like fingernails raking down his spine. Like the most primal panic he’d ever felt in his life.

            Reminded him of watching his dad die; of holding Sammy while he bled out in a street. Of watching Lucifer coming up out of his cage. Every bad, every really terrifying thing he’d ever seen, crashing over him all at once.

            _Mohera_.

            The fire sparked out.

            Dean felt the angels drop whatever shield they’d been putting up, and they disappeared.

            A lotta different people had a lotta different, personal, definitions of chaos.  Band camp, New York traffic, life with kids. Dean was pretty sure they’d gotten their facts wrong; because, this? _This was chaos_.

            The wall flattened out, then disappeared completely; Dean flipped the archangel blade around for a better grip, felt John’s breath in his ear. “Stay close to me.”

            And then they were fighting.

            Molotovs were going off like flash-bombs, dragging the Mohera’s attention, the monsters moving in close, then hopping back; the Mohera was tunneling, but almost like it was trying to dodge them; like maybe the fire really had freaked it out and it was thinking twice about screwing with the people _who made the fire_.   

            It made Dean feel powerful, on top of the world.

            That lasted until the Mohera knocked three monsters flying and Dean watched the light leave their bodies—literally. Souls sucking up into the Mohera, making it stronger, making it more powerful. On the periphery of his vision, Dean saw Sam grab one of the monsters and swing it out of the way, something catching on his back and ripping through his jacket.

            “Dean!” John rammed his shoulder, throwing him out of the way, and frustration exploded out of Dean’s chest.

            “ _This is stupid_!” He howled. “I can’t see the damned thing!”

            “Don’t look! Just follow my lead!” John aimed a rock-salt shotgun and fired, drawing the thing’s attention. “Go right and take a stab at your ten!”

            Dean obeyed, force of habit, but he felt like an idiot and thought he probably missed by a mile.

So he was surprised when John shouted after him, “Dammit! You were close!”

            Dean fell back, closer to the machine, looking up at the catwalk. With one of those lightning-bolt ideas that left him wondering _,_ _Why the hell didn’t I think of this before?_

“John!” He got the Shifter’s attention, then pointed up. John nodded.

            Apparently, the Mohera wasn’t a big fan of Dean’s idea; he was about to hit the stairs when the catwalk split in half, right over his head, shooting chunks of metal flooring everywhere and winging steel poles like missiles through the granary. Dean hit the deck on his chest and felt like something was grabbing his back, tugging him up from the inside.

            Dean gritted his teeth and hauled himself to his feet, scrambling backwards, away from the Mohera’s influence.

            “Hey!” John tossed a Molotov almost casually toward Dean, and it caught on some of the loose flour still in the air, rocking the walls with a thunderstorm of a blast that left Dean’s ears ringing; in the dimming glow of fire, he thought he saw something—again—but it was gone almost as fast.

            A hand grabbed his arm, hauling him to his feet, and Dean barely had a chance to nod to a bloody-eyed, lock-jawed Rugaru before it charged the Mohera.

            And went sailing back past Dean, ripped apart head-to-foot by knife-like claws. That was the problem with this thing, they couldn’t get close enough for a stab ’cause it had to have spikes growing off of it, or eyes on every side of its body or something. It always knew where they were going to be.

            Dean watched a half-transformed werewolf go flying, its teeth shrinking back down the same second its soul sucked out of its body, jetted into thin air and disappeared. Half the granary got leveled with the Mohera spinning around, trying to get at the rest of the buffet that was attacking it.

            “Fall back!” John ordered, and half the monsters did; most couldn’t, stuck right in there, whacking at the thing. But that was just making it more pissed; even as a human, Dean could _feel_ , it was pissed and it was hungry and they were _so screwed_.

            They ducked behind the warped remains of part of the catwalk, Dean and John with Gwen joining them and then, finally, Sam.

            “You good?” Dean asked; Sam nodded breathlessly.

            Something smacked into Dean’s knees and he had the blade up before he realized it was Bobby, tumbling down to join them.

            “Took you long enough!” Dean snapped.

            “ _I’ve been up here for five minutes_. Quit’cher bitchin’.” Bobby turned to John. “We’re gettin’ slaughtered out there, John.”

            “How many monsters are left?” Sam peeked over the edge of the metal.

 “Six, seven? It ain’t pretty,” Bobby said grimly. “We need to regroup.”

“There’s nowhere we _can_ regroup,” John was breathing hard. “The Mohera is never going to stop. It’s already killed ten thousand people in this state alone, and believe me, it’s just getting started. It will eat its way through all of us, and then there’ll be nothing to stop it.”

Bobby’s face went dark, and Dean could understand why he was so pissed; they were the last line between the Mohera and the souls of every person on the planet, and they couldn’t even get close.

“Bobby, did you get the pit open yet?” Sam demanded.

“You’ll know when that door’s swinging wide, Sam, believe me.”

“But somebody still has to stab it,” Sam insisted. “Someone has to get close enough for a shot at its head.”

Dean stiffened, looking at Sam; he knew that sound in his brother’s voice. That was his cure-for-werewolfism, jump-into-the-Pit, summon-Ruby-and-steal-the-knife tone. And Sam was staring at him, giving him that look like he was memorizing Dean’s face.

“Kick it in the ass, Dean.” Sam pulled on a half-smile.

Dean lunged toward him. “Sam, _no_!”

Sam was already moving, flipping himself over the edge of their little slice of catwalk and running straight toward the Mohera, or where it had to be considering that was where the monsters were bouncing off of thin air. Dean was halfway over the edge of the shelter when John roped him with an arm from behind, pulling him back.

“Dean, stay put!”

“ _Sammy_!”

Sam ducked and rolled, and Dean felt like every blood-cell in his body was rushing up and pooling in his chest. Choking off his air while he watched Sam get under the thing, had to be, _right under it_ , and then he just…

He _stopped_.

Another vampire went flying into the corner, smacked down hard and didn’t get up again. Dean barely saw him.

Because the next thing he knew, Sam was airborne, not flying, but like something had picked him straight up. And Dean remembered what they’d told him, John, or Bobby, didn’t matter, at some point somebody had told him that if you got close to the Mohera’s head, you could kiss your soul goodbye.

Dean saw that moonshine glow under Sam’s skin, knew he was watching the soul they’d sacrificed half of everything to get back, slipping away.

And then Sam’s arm swung up out of nowhere, stabbing into thin air.

Stabbing the _archangel sword_ , straight into the Mohera’s head.

            Dean hadn’t even felt Sam lifting it off of him.

            The sound that blasted through the granary wasn’t like anything Dean had heard before in his life; this high-pitched, out-and-out primal _scream_ that felt like machetes to his ear-drums, like the sound of a thousand souls getting ripped apart on the rack. It was so much anger and hatred and pain and terror that it put all of them, humans and monsters, straight down on their knees.

            It reminded Dean of every instinctual fear he’d ever had, nighttime and heights and planes crashing and his family, _dying_. It washed up every _thing_ he’d ever felt, even the ones he’d choked down: lust and love and pity and hatred and fury.

            And then, all of it was gone. All of it, so fast he felt dizzy.

            Everything except for one.

            The fear was still there, and Dean doubled over and threw up all over the catwalk, looking up just in time.

            Just in time to see the Mohera fling Sam into the corner of the granary.

            Dean could never cut out the part of his brain that heard Sam’s cry of pain, cutting off way too fast after he hit the ground, disappearing in the hole where half the catwalk had fallen, denting into the concrete.

            The inside of the granary turned into a hurricane; souls, flying everywhere, sucking free of nothing,

            And then, sucking free of the _Mohera_.

            Because Dean could see it; it filled the entire granary from floor to ceiling, so, thirty-five feet high at the top of its shoulders, anyway. Not skin, exactly, but its body was rotting off in sloppy ropes. Its head looked like a deformed rock, or Godzilla-meets-Worf. Its blind eyes were squeezed shut and it started screaming again, but there was less volume to it this time. Because every time it opened its mouth, more souls were rushing out.

            And that finally unlocked Dean’s limbs. He shoved Bobby’s shoulder. “Go, go, Bobby, go! _Get the door open_!”

            Bobby went, with a lot more speed than Dean would’ve given him credit for. Dean swerved out from behind the wrecked metal sheet and ran; straight for the corner, toward that crater in the floor. His brain was playing one thought on a loop: _get to Sam, get to Sam, get to Sam_.

            And then something moved on the edge of Dean’s vision, and he put on the brakes, almost tripping himself up when he spun around.

            Kaila was using the distraction of the Mohera barfing out souls to scoot around behind it and out to freedom.

Son of a bitch, she’d actually managed to slip the belt.

            Dean felt like he was standing on the edge of something huge, trying to make up his mind: find Sammy, or grab Kaila.

            Dean swore and bolted.

            Kaila almost made it out through the fence; almost. Was right on the other side of a tin-can crumble, what was left of the Impala, when Dean caught up to her, slamming her against the chained links so hard he felt the breaths shove out of her lungs.

            “I don’t think so, sweetheart.” He snarled in her ear.

            She jabbed her foot up and back, toward his crotch, and Dean doubled in away from her to spare the family jewels; had to loosen his grip to do it, and Kaila slithered free, whirling around behind him. Dean ducked and caught the knife she was aiming for his face, the blade sinking into his palm. He threw it aside and punched her straight-on in the face, knocking her reeling.

            “I don’t have time to beat your ass as black and blue as I want to.” Dean held up a hand and curled his fingers over twice. “Let’s dance.”

            Kaila lunged for him and Dean spun out of her reach, grabbing her wrist and torquing her arm up behind her back. She yelped, wrenching, and Dean kicked her legs out from under her and put her down on the ground, propped up on one hand with is weight driving her arm almost up between her shoulderblades.

            When Kaila dropped from her flat hand to her chest, the height change almost pitched Dean on top of her; he saw that knife curving up toward his head and smacked her arm down flat on the ground. The angle gave her the advantage, though; she cocked her head back, smacking his chin hard enough to detonate stars in his eyes, and she rolled over on top of him, slipping her knife hand free and trying to jab the blade into his ribs.

            Dean slung one arm across her throat and grabbed her wrist with the other, stopping the knife but not before it took a little bite out of his ribs. Dean flipped her over and pinned her again, and this lightweight and fighting this hard, he could feel her heartbeat going a mile a minute through his knee in the small of her back.

            “Pinned ya again.” He cracked.

            Kaila moved a lot faster, this time; sliced the inside of his elbow, shot out from under him, and darted behind him before Dean had even grabbed for the wound on his arm.

            Dean felt it like a punch, like a solid kick to the solar plexus. Then a wet, white lance of pain as the knife stabbed into back.

            And Kaila started laughing; it grated on the ends of Dean’s nerves, dulling out the pain, sucking it down to a crawl. He reached around with one hand, fingers searching out the grip of the knife; he grabbed it and slid it out, gasping and locking his jaw against a hiss as he _felt_ the blood pouring out.

            He swiveled, slowly, to feet, facing Kaila; watched the laughter in her eyes die out, freeze over. Turn into cold, hard, _disbelief._

            “How are you—?”

            “Missed the soft spot, bitch.” Dean flipped the knife over in his hand. “This one’s for my friend, _Cass_.”

            Kaila didn’t have a chance to turn, didn’t even start to run, before the knife left Dean’s hand. It flew end-over-end, one silver cut in a world of night and fire, and sank to the hilt in her chest.

            She dropped dead at his feet.

            Dean stared down at her, this badass broad who’d caused them a lot of trouble on a pretty short run; tried to find some part of him that gave a damn, that felt bad for the dead human being with her wide eyes staring past his boots.

Couldn’t find anything other than satisfaction and pain.

And speaking of; Dean wavered on his feet, his vision doubling, then tripling for a second. He felt for the chain-link fence behind him, weaving his fingers into the metal and shaking the haze out of his head. He curled an arm around his side and touched the bleeding trench on his back. His fingers came back dripping.

            “Ah, dammit.” Dean blinked again when the granary in front of him looked like it was growing a second story. Dizzy—way too dizzy. Kaila hadn’t hit the spinal cord, but she was a good shot anyway.

            He needed help.

            When the ground started moving under his feet, at first Dean thought it was _him_ shaking. But even with him making a conscious effort to get a hold of himself, it kept going—ratcheting up, from a shiver to out-and-out quaking. Kinda like a boat tossing in the middle of the open ocean.

            And that’s when he heard it: that bottom’s out, sucking _roar_.

            His mind slammed into overdrive. All he could think of was, _Stull_ , and _Lucifer_. Could feel the pain exploding behind the bones of his face, the blood coating his teeth. Could _taste_ it, blood and metal and Sam’s fist as it splintered cartilage and popped blood vessels behind his eyes.

            The worst pain of all, that he knew, that spelled the end: Sam’s voice. _It’s okay, Dean. It’s gonna be okay. I’ve got him_.

            Baby brother turned protector.

            That sound was the _Cage_.

            And just like that, everything snapping back into place, it was all _Get to Sam, save Sam._ _Pull him out before_ —

            The entire wall of the granary flattened in front of Dean, kicking up a puff of dust a quarter-mile high. The Mohera was backing out, this mountain of rotting skin and rage, and the monsters were trying to herd it back in. Back toward—

            The pit to Purgatory.

            They’d opened it.

            Adrenaline scissored through Dean’s veins, canceled out the pain. He started running. “ _Push the damned thing!_ ”

            Not that the monsters weren’t trying; but between dodging those dinosaur feet and trying to stay away from its head—trying not to unravel what Sam had done, setting the souls free—they couldn’t get close.

            Well, okay, that was a lie. They could’ve gotten close if they had the stones to get in there and risk it. But they weren’t fighters, most of them were just Grade-A civilians who’d been manhandled into this life.

            Except for one.

            And Dean should’ve seen it coming. But for some reason it still surprised him, and made his stomach take a plunge, when he saw John with the archangel sword and a steel beam in his hands, a python-thick chain looped around his neck, rushing the thing.

            Dean poured on speed. “ _No_!”

            The archangel blade sank into the Mohera’s skin, kind of got absorbed into it, and the thing screamed, again, like the sound had gotten yanked out of it. John clocked it in the head with the steel pole and used the sword as leverage, vaulting onto the thing’s back; he had the chain under its neck and around what was left of the support beams overhead in one throw.

            Dean felt the second the Mohera’s feet left the ground, like some huge pressure had disappeared; a load came off. Dean skidded to a stop and stared as the chain sank into its throat, pulled the Mohera off balance and into the steadily-widening hole.

            Which left John swinging from the rafters with no solid ground under him, just a vortex of fire as the souls of monsters started pouring back out to freedom.

            “Bobby, _close it_!” Dean hollered, but Bobby, bless his cranky old heart, was already on it. Reading that incantation off fast and hard, while the Mohera kept falling and the chain started snaking up, pulling John up, too, fast and hard. A couple more seconds and he’d be over the top and free-falling into Purgatory.

            The ground under Dean’s feet buckled and started sliding toward the hole. He skipped back, his eyes on John, panic pounding like a hammerstrike in his wrists.

            And then Bobby spat the last word of the incantation; a glaring white light shot out of the pit, punched through the clouds overhead, scattered them. And then it sucked back down.

            John let the chain loose the second his feet touched the steel beam. He crouched on one knee, resting his mouth on his wrist and staring into a hundred-foot-deep, seven-yard-wide sinkhole that used to be the granary.

            For a few seconds, nothing happened; Dean felt his pulse going sluggish, his breaths staggering. Couldn’t believe it, kept waiting for—something. For the Mohera to crawl back out.

            There was a really long, low, faraway crackle of thunder.

            And then the monsters started cheering.

            There were four of them left, including John. One of them, Dean didn’t even know what the hell it was; it kept sticking its tongue out like a snake.

            Bobby was on the other side of the hole, pushing a rag against a fountain of blood spurting out of his shoulder. Gwen was nowhere in sight; Dean couldn’t do much other than hope she wasn’t dead.

            He looked up, met John’s eyes; the Shifter tightrope-walked his way across the beam, hopped down on what was left of the catwalk and slid down the buckled surface until his feet hit the ground. He inched around the edge of the sinkhole and grabbed Dean’s shoulder. “We did it.”

            Dean winced, a huff of pain trying to find its way out, and pulled a tight smile. “Yeah. We did.”

            There were tears in John’s eyes when he let go of Dean and went to rally the others.

            Dean put his hand to the wall, a first wave of darkness coloring his vision.

            Couldn’t stop, couldn’t fix himself up. Not yet.

            _Find Sam_.

 


	8. Chapter 8

_June 23 rd, 2012_

_Wheat Granary Outside of Baker City, Oregon_

 

It ended, somehow, the way it really started.

            With a ‘ _goodnight, Sammy_ ’.

            Dean worked his way around the hole, fighting a weird, creeping fuzzy feeling that was spreading up his limbs. He moved with his hand on the fence, slow, old-man, _slow­_ —hadn’t _been_ this slow since he’d played years for Bobby’s life with an Irish cheap-shot witch. And even that hadn’t hurt this bad.

            Dean finally made it, to a place where part of the granary was still standing, that dent in the floor, away from the sinkhole. Standing on the edge of it with one arm curled around his stomach, Dean stared down at the tangled piece of the roof, wires and screw-shaped poles sticking out, that’d punched a slope into the floor.

            And Sam, lying at the bottom.

            _Sam_.

            Dean wasn’t sure if he thought Sam’s name, or said it out loud, sliding down the concrete and leaving stains of blood on the gunmetal gray behind him. He tumbled to his knees beside Sam, bundling his brother into his arms. Sam was limp, unresponsive, half of his huge body in Dean’s lap and his head resting on the crook of Dean’s elbow. Blood ran from the corner of his mouth and completely soaked the front of his white button-up shirt.

            “Sammy. _Sam_!” More blood than he could deal with, he didn’t even know where to _start_. Dean threw a helpless glance over his shoulder. “ _Dad! Bobby!_ Somebody, _help_!”

            Sam’s head rolled loosely against Dean’s arm, and Dean almost choked on the air that rushed into his lungs.

            “Sammy? Hey, hey, hey, don’t move, man. You’re losing blood fast.”

            “Dean—?” Sam’s voice was fuzzy; his morning voice.

            A smile that hurt warped its way across Dean’s face. “Right here, man. I gotcha.”

            That calmed Sam enough to stop him moving. “Did we,” Sam coughed, dripping blood on Dean’s jeans. “Did we do it?”

            It took Dean’s brain a second to put everything together. “Oh, yeah. Yeah, Sam, we got him. The son of a bitch is back where he belongs. Just…take it easy.” He brushed Sam’s dirty hair off of his dirt-smudged face. God, the kid needed a shower. Needed time off, needed…“Can’t believe you ditched me during the grand finale.”

            Tried to make it a joke, tried to make it something they could laugh about when Sam was wired to a hundred hospital machines and throwing a bitchfit because he wanted _out_ , wanted back in the game, wanted to be hunting again.

            One long tremor shook Sam’s body. “M’so sorry, Dean.”

            Hell if he didn’t sound like he meant it. Sam’s breaths were coming out fast and hard, punctuated with these whimpers like, God, he had to be in pain, so much it was killing him. Sam never made those sounds, never let the pain shine through unless his grip was slipping.

            Unless he was—

            Dean reached over Sam’s heaving ribcage and found his brother’s hand, crushing it inside of his, trying to give him something, _anything_ , screw the no-chick-flick-moments, he needed his brother to anchor down and _hang on_.

            “Bobby’s gonna be here, soon. So’s John. They’re gonna fix this.” Dean’s voice was shaking, too. “It’s fine. You’re okay. We’re okay, Sammy. Don’t you shut the lights off on me, bitch.”

            “J-jerk.” The word shook it sway free of Sam, and then he slumped, his head tucking back into Dean’s stomach.

            Dean scrambled for the pulse, his fingers slipping when he tried to find Sam’s neck. He couldn’t feel—anything—inside himself, but Sam’s heartbeat was still there, jumping and tap-dancing under his touch, and that was enough.

            Dean buried his face on Sam’s shoulder, for once, no more bravado, no more game face, nothing left. Just him and Sammy, his brother, in this hole, the Mohera was dead and Kaila was dead, Marik, Samuel, and this was all they had.

            “Sammy, I’m sorry.” For some reason, this felt important; important, so were the tears soaking into Sam’s shirt. “I’m sorry I never took you to see the Grand Canyon…”

            The pain had fluxed out to a pinprick on his side, where Kaila’s knife had ripped his kidney open.

            _G’night, Sam._

 

 

That was how John and Bobby found them, Dean folded protectively over his little brother in the reeking hole, his arms around Sam and his head on Sam’s shoulder. They could have, almost, been asleep.

If it weren’t for the simple fact that Dean would never have allowed that, it was too much, too girly, too close, too much of _everything_.

Heedless of the jagged edges of concrete and twisted pipes from the section of the roof that had scooped into the floor, John slid down the slope and dropped to his knees beside them. He gently, carefully pulled Dean off of Sam and into his arms, searching for a pulse, his frantic eyes finding Bobby’s as Bobby’s hands swam through a sea of scarlet on Sam’s chest.

Bobby’s ear tucked down to Sam’s mouth, listening for breaths.

With tears finding a home in salt-and-pepper beard, John buried his face in Dean’s spiky hair.

 

 

The world was trapped in a veil of white, swirling inside his head.

He was vaguely aware of hands moving across his body; voices speaking near him, around him, but not _to_ him. No one wanted to hear about the crippling weight on his chest or the pain that was there, even inside the white, even when he was lost in everything. His throat wouldn’t move, his voice wouldn’t work. No one was listening.

He had a jilted sense of time, moving in a staggered stream; of being moved, and moving, but not knowing where he was, or why. Something invaded: mouth, throat, nostrils. His arms tingled with discomfort. High-pitched whining, cold hands mopping at the sweat and blood on his forehead.

Not hands he knew. Not hands that smelled like gunpowder and aftershave.

Hands, moving, almost inside of him.

Cold.

            And then, for a while, nothing but drifting, and distant unease.

            The voices came back, none that he recognized; still talking through him, never trying to engage him, never asking him, _What’s wrong? What hurts? How can we fix it?_

_Sammy, tell me what I can do._

God, he hurt. No one was listening.

            Dean would’ve listened.

            Dean.

            Where was Dean?

 

 

            In time, the white veil that tasted like sweet drugs, faded. It grew edges, rough edges, and took form over his head.

            Ceiling; white, paneled ceiling flicked through with chips of black. His nose burned with the intrusion of a breathing aperture. The only things he could smell beyond that: disinfectant, medicine, and the cold.

            _Hospital_.

            Sam reached up absently to scratch at his cheek; his chest pulled taut, stopping him. He looked down, at the flimsy white, standard-issue hospital t-shirt, and saw the bandage peeking out through the v-neck. He wiggled his finger underneath and gave himself full view of a raw red scar that held the two halves of his chest together.

            Sam dropped his head back against the standard-issue hospital pillow, which smelled like standard-issue hospital detergent, and decided he needed his family to bust him out. The sooner, the better.

            Something shifted in the corner of the room, a jacket zipper jangling, and Sam rocked his head sideways to look.

            Bobby was asleep on the floor, propped up with his head where the walls met. Sam could count on one hand the number of times he’d seen Bobby sleeping, and right now he looked defenseless, vulnerable. In a way that made Sam smile.

            And that smile felt wrong, distorted, out of place.

            Sam’s chest heaved, and the monitors beeped a warning.

            Something wasn’t right.

            Sam could remember the granary, rushing the Mohera; could remember the feeling of its jaws curling around him, but no teeth. And the painful ripping sensation as it started to pull at his soul. Then he’s stabbed it, and—

            A brief flicker of _something_. Of being cold, and then warm, and then colder than he’d _ever_ been, even in winters he’d spent up to his elbows in snow, hunting yetis in the Yukon for training.

            The acceleration of the monitors must’ve alerted somebody, because within a minute there was a nurse in the room; her hands were on Sam’s chest, trying to calm him down, but he couldn’t calm down, he couldn’t, something was really, _really wrong_.

            “Nurse, where’s my—where’s—?” The words squeezed off in Sam’s throat. He was choking on something, something was crushing him.

            “Honey, lie still, you’re going to rip out your stitches!” The nurse was half Sam’s height and a third his weight and he wanted her hands _off_ of him.

            “Where’s _Dean_?”

            Bobby flailed up from the corner, fully awake, at the same second the nurse plunged a needle into the shunt in Sam’s right arm. She depressed the plunger and almost immediately, a lazy, dulling sensation swept Sam’s mind.

            He felt Bobby’s hand on his shoulder. “Easy, kid, easy.”

            _Bobby, where is he_?

            Sam drifted.

 

 

            He drifted for a long time, in and out of the white veil and dreams of Hell, and of the Mohera. Details came back to him, but they were fractured and fragmented and didn’t make any sense. He became gradually aware that the metallic taste on his tongue was morphine, and that he’d been hurt. Badly.

            But none of that mattered, none of it; he’d bounce back, just like he always did, and when he finally swam up out of the blankness of the sedative, Dean would be standing over him with Sam’s hoodie in one hand and the keys to the Impala in the other, and he’d have that famous crooked smile. _Ready to blow this joint, bitch_?

            Bitch. Jerk. The Impala.

            Sam had dreams of a cold body beside his, of winding his fingers into something frozen. Of Dean’s eyes closed like he was asleep, but he shouldn’t have been.

            Something was missing.

            When he finally pried his tired eyes open—when he finally woke up, gripping a hold of his drifting mind—the world swirled around Sam in crazy loops and circles. There was a face above his, and for one second everything was right, because it was Dean, Dean was here and Dean would _fix this_.

            Sam didn’t even remember what needed fixing.

            And this wasn’t Dean; it was a man in a white coat, with a pencil-thin mustache and slicked-down hair and a clipboard. He had a smile, though, and if he was smiling Sam had to hope that meant there was nothing wrong that couldn’t be _fixed_.

            “Welcome back, Samuel. I’m Doctor Carpenter.” The doctor’s voice was a low, reassuring rumble and Sam relaxed, watching the man as he moved around the bed and started checking the monitors and writing things down.

            “It’s Sam,” The response was automatic. “What happened to me?”

            “Car accident.” Carpenter replied. “A head-on collision with a semi-truck. Your chest was crushed by the steering wheel.”

            Sam vaguely remembered how that felt—and that it wasn’t a steering wheel, it was concrete, and he’d hit hard enough to break something deep inside of him.

            “It—my heart—”

            The doctor’s eyes went dark for a second before he laid a hand on Sam’s shoulder. “It’s a bit much to pile on you all at once, son. Your vitals are looking good and your body isn’t rejecting—” He broke off, tapping the pen against his top lip, then jotting something down. “Why don’t you just get some rest?”

            “Yeah, sure, okay.” Sam said uncertainly. “Where are the guys who came here with me?”

            “Mister Singer is down in the cafeteria.”

            “Thanks.” Sam frowned as Carpenter headed for the door. “Hey, wait a second.”

            “Yes?” He turned back toward Sam with a slightly impatient smile.

            “Where’s Dean?” Sam demanded, pulling himself up onto his elbows, and when Carpenter looked down Sam knew that _he_ knew who Sam was talking about. “Doctor? Where’s my brother?”

            “I’m sorry, son.” Carpenter said quietly. “Your brother, he didn’t make it.”

            It hit Sam like hurricane-force winds, like an insect getting its wings stripped off. Like falling and hitting hard and watching yourself bleed, and there was nothing you could do to stop it. Nothing.

            He sank back, stupefied, numb to everything except the blood swishing in his ears. His head flopped uselessly back on the pillows.

            “I’m so sorry.” Carpenter’s empty words barely penetrated; Sam’s body was going hot-and-cold, sweat breaking out.  

            He didn’t hear the doctor leave. He still felt Dean’s hand, cold, and strong, curling around his. His brother’s promise passing through bloodstained lips, with Sam’s head in Dean’s lap. “It’s fine. You’re okay. We’re okay, Sammy.”

            He hadn’t noticed how hurt Dean was. Hadn’t been able to tell over his own fluttering, thready heartbeat. But he remembered—he remembered everything there was to remember. The Impala exploding, his own kamikaze run at the monster, Dean’s arms around him before everything went black.

            Sam stared straight up at the ceiling. Seeing through it. Into the past, into a winding road under a cloudless sky, the Impala eating through the miles, baby never caring, her two boys on board. Sam and Dean. Hunting. Together. Always.

            And Sam imagined rebuilding that car from the ground up. Legos in the vents. Toy soldier in the ashtray. Dad’s journal beside him, driving the miles. Alone. Alone, when he was used to turning his head half an inch and being able to see Dean. Alone with the empty silence when the music wasn’t playing, the music his brother loved. In that empty front seat. With nothing else to do but hunt, forever.

            Sam didn’t do anything to fight the tears that rolled from the corners of his eyes. He’d been strong for weeks, months, ever since he’d saved Dean from Raphael. They’d saved everyone, killed Kaila, killed Marik, killed Samuel; sealed the Mohera back into Purgatory. Dean had died fighting for it. Something was wrong with Sam’s heart.

            John, and Mary. Jessica. Madison. Castiel, Rufus, Jo and Ellen. They’d given up so much, bled so much, died so many times. Wasn’t it _enough_?

            The monitors blared out of control as Sam rolled over and vomited onto the floor.

 

 

            The story came to him from Bobby, over the course of that day and the next one.

            They—Bobby and John—had driven Sam straight from the granary to the nearest hospital outside the border, with Dean’s body beside him in the backseat. It explained the dreams Sam’d had, of Dean’s closed eyes.

            Gwen was dead. The last Campbell, killed by the Mohera. John was back in Oregon, running damage control, sweeping up the mess. And there was a real mess to clean up: opening Purgatory had let loose a hundred other monsters that they didn’t have names or ideas for, none as powerful as the Mohera as far as John could find, but all of them angry and hungry.

            The final count from the Mohera’s soul-stealing rampage was into the millions, worldwide. In seven months, it had put such an enormous dent in the world’s population, nobody had a word for it. But if the news channels were telling it right, everyone had the sense that it was over.

            If not for the last Winchester alive, then for the rest of the world.

            The fall onto the concrete floor had snapped his ribs. Sam’s heart had been damaged beyond repair. How he’d even been alive when they’d rolled him into the ER was a mystery to the doctors. Luckily, they’d had a perfect match on hand; a heart so clean and healthy, it must’ve been a miracle.

            He’d been asleep on and off for three days.

            Sam listened to all of this with Dean’s heart in his chest, Dean’s heart beating fast and painful against Sam’s plastered, slowly-mending ribs.

            There was no going back this time.

            Bobby didn’t leave his side all that day; and Sam didn’t say one word. Couldn’t, he couldn’t find the strength inside of himself to say anything at all. He didn’t have anything _to_ say. Dean was gone, really gone, this time, and even if it wasn’t Hell for him it was hell for Sam, because he was still broken and damaged and now he was alone.

            He wasn’t sure how he managed to sit up, the next morning when he struggled out of sleep and saw that Bobby was gone. But he somehow found the strength to get his legs over the edge of the bed. Ripping off the pads that were stuck to his chest was easier; he pulled out the oxygen tube that hooked into his nostrils, slid out all the IV’s except for one. Grabbed the pole, and rolled it out the door, ducking into the utilities closet across the room to wait out the nurses running in to find his empty bed.

            Sam leaned against the wall for a while, just staring up at the darkness that he couldn’t see through.

            And finally letting himself out, and heading for autopsy.

            Some higher power, somewhere, God maybe, or the angels, took pity on him; because Sam found the cold room completely deserted. He propped his shoulder against the wall for a minute, trying to breathe, trying to steady his racing heart. _Dean’s racing heart_. Sam wondered how his brother had lived with something inside of him that felt this full and this heavy and this warm.

            Or, maybe, that was just him.

            It wasn’t hard to find the unit that housed his brother’s corpse; because Bobby hadn’t bothered giving them an alias. Not that Sam could blame him. He hadn’t said anything when Bobby had explained the chain of events to him, but he’d been listening, and he knew the sound of Bobby’s voice when he was close to breaking. He’d been too wrecked, too distraught to think up a lie.

            And Sam just couldn’t blame him for that.

            Because he felt the same way from the second he pulled out the drawer.

            Post-excision, post-autopsy, they’d dressed Dean back in the clothes Sam had last seen him in. It felt like a mockery, now; it was weird, it was _wrong_ , because Dean in that t-shirt and those jeans and that flannel shirt and jacket, he was supposed to be on his feet, kicking ass, not lying stone cold _dead_ in a hospital morgue. Dean should have been jittery with cabin fever by now, bullying Sam to get on his feet and get moving because they had stuff to do and the world wasn’t gonna wait on him forever.

            Dean was supposed to sit beside Sam’s hospital bed and fall asleep there and wake up and _still_ be ordering him back to good health.

            Sam didn’t know how his hand ended up on Dean’s hair, his thumb stroking Dean’s still, cold forehead.

            “Hey, man. It’s me.” Sam’s voice choked, but he couldn’t find the strength to clear his throat. He leaned his free elbow on the chilly metal, feeling the warmth leeching from his body. “Bobby, he, uh—he told me what happened.”

            They’d found Dean with a hole in his back so massive he should’ve been dead within minutes after he’d been hurt. Bobby didn’t have any explanation for how Dean had held on long enough to find Sam; except, that he was Dean, he was a stubborn son of a bitch and if anyone could go that far, it was him.

            Had been. He _had been_ that tough.

            Sam’s head dropped, the strength leaving him with the warmth. “Dean, I’m sorry.” He wasn’t sure why he was apologizing, really, because Sam knew it wasn’t his fault and he knew Dean would’ve smacked him upside the head, told him to quit with the girly whining and do what he had to do.

            Sam slid his hand to the back of Dean’s head, lifted it up from the tray, and tugged the amulet gently off of his brother’s neck.

            With it resting over his heart, _over Dean’s heart_ , it felt half at home and half like a disgrace. Like something Sam never should’ve had to wear.

            Sam knelt beside the tray with his arms crossed on the edge and his head on his arms, and just sat there, and listened to himself breathing; the silence, of just his breaths alone. People were gone, people were dying around him, and Sam was still alive.

            Bobby found him down there half an hour later, still, unmoving. Sam felt the older hunter crouch behind him and grip his shoulder hard. “What can I do, Sam?”

            Sam wiped his face on his bare arm and sat up. “Check me out of the hospital, Bobby. I have to finish this.”

 

 

            It was a process of tact.

Bobby finagled and harassed the orderlies and finally Sam just had to sneak out the hospital’s back door, because they insisted that they had to monitor his body, to make sure it wouldn’t reject Dean’s heart. Sam listened in from around the corner and wanted to pound his fist into Doctor Carpenter’s face; Dean’s heart had always mattered to him, he’d sworn to live and die protecting it, so why stop now?

Bobby met him out by the hot-wired Buick behind the hospital, carrying Dean’s body in his arms. Sam climbed in first, and Bobby laid Dean inside and covered him with his own jacket, and they started driving.

Sam’s mind was already planning, forming ideas. “Bobby. Can I take the car?”

            He felt Bobby’s eyes on him in the rearview mirror. “Sure thing, kid.” There was a beat of silence. “You want company?”

            Sam shook his head, forehead scrunching, and cleared his throat. “No. No, thanks. I need to do this alone.”

            Bobby nodded and didn’t push it. Sam lapsed into silence, his hand on Dean’s chest through the jacket, feeling the stillness of an empty chest cavity.

            “Maybe we could call on those bastard angels,” Bobby suggested, five minutes later. “See if we can call in a few favors, get Dean a new heart and have ’im dropped back into his meatsuit.”

            “No.” Sam shook his head; he was selfish, he was self-righteous, but he couldn’t do that to Dean. “No, Dean wouldn’t want us to do it. He wouldn’t want us to bring him back.” Sam slid his hand under the jacket and knotted his fingers into Dean’s shirt. “Not this time.”

            He met Bobby’s eyes in the rearview mirror and saw that look he knew too well: _You’re breaking my heart, Sam_.

            No judgment, no anger. Just Bobby, who’d seen them through so much, through each other’s deaths before and plunges into the Pit and now this.

            They made it to the bus stop and got out, Sam to take the seat and Bobby to make his own way. Not before Bobby folded Sam into a hug so tight it felt like it was bruising his fragile ribs; he clung to Bobby’s back and buried his face in his surrogate father’s shoulder, and wished he didn’t have to move, ever again. Wished he didn’t have to _do this_ , to himself, to Dean.

            When they pulled apart, Bobby walked to the trunk of the car; and came back with Sam’s duffle, shoving it into his hands.

            “Colt’s in there. And some of Dean’s things.” Bobby said. “Figured you’ll need it, where you’re going.”

            Sam had forgotten he couldn’t lie to Bobby.

            “Thanks, Bobby.”

            “See you around, Sam.” Bobby clapped Sam gently on the side of the neck, and Sam watched him walk away for a minute.

“Bobby, what about—?”

“Takin’ what’s left of the Impala back to my place.” Bobby called without turning around. “She’ll be waitin’ for you.”

“Thank you,” Sam said it again, under his breath, and then he slid into the front seat of the Buick. It felt empty and wide, nothing like the Impala. Sam ran his hand over the dashboard and refused to look into the backseat. “It’s just you and me, Dean.”

The silence yawned through the car the whole way down toward Arizona. Sam broke every speed limit known to man, the hum of the overworked engine filling in the gaps Sam couldn’t penetrate or explain. It felt like there was a black ocean inside of him, and he couldn’t count the number of times tears flooded his vision to the point of obscuring the road.

He drove with wet cheeks and a shattered spirit, trying to put the pieces together every time he reached for the radio to turn it on; only to click it off again when a Boston song filled the car, when REO warbled _It’s Time For Me To Fly_.

Dean had told him about his deal with Death; no more second chances. No more bringing the Winchesters back. Their New Year’s resolution, a broken promise between them: _neither one of us is dying this year_.

Sam couldn’t do it, couldn’t go to a crossroads and bargain, couldn’t pray for the angels to help. If Dean was in Heaven, he had to be with John and Mary. And Sam would never pull him away from that.

And if Dean was in Hell, Sam would know about it soon enough.

 

 

            Sam built the funeral pyre in a copse of twisted, stunted scrub trees on the edge of a cliff that he couldn’t see. He could still feel himself standing on it.

            He dragged Dean fmo the car, his older brother’s arm slung across his shoulders, and just one more time Sam felt him, close, and if not alive, then at least he felt whole. Sam arranged Dean’s body on an altar of memories and the blood from Sam’s hands, skinned open by rocks and the branches he’d trimmed off the trees with his knife. Sam wrapped Dean in the leather jacket he’d inherited from John, and then he sprinkled him with the essentials: salt and gasoline, a hunter’s staples.

            Sam thumbed the notch on the lighter, memorizing Dean’s face, knowing that, in time, he’d lose that, too.

            Sam wanted to tell his brother he loved him; wanted to say he was sorry—again.

            But instead he squared his shoulders and stood up straighter.

            “Goodbye, Dean.”

            Sam flicked the lighter and tossed it onto the body.

            It caught like nothing Sam had seen before, like the world just couldn’t wait to take the last of Dean away from him. Sam watched the heat and flames coat Dean’s cheekbones, turn the planes of his face into something endless and eternal and unreachable. His soul was already gone, it was just a shell; but Dean had never given up on Sam when _he_ was just a shell, and here Sam was, burning his body.

            Sam put his back to the tree behind him and slid down, gangly legs cocked at the knees and his hands digging into the dust and dry grass, watching the flames lick across the pyre and consume. The way they’d swallowed his dad; and Adam; and Castiel. And now his brother, the person he’d relied on the most, the person who’d saved Sam from everything he could, including from himself.

            And now Dean was gone; and when something else came, and took Bobby, and John, Sam would be completely alone.

            Just the thought made him dizzy.

            Sam tipped over and laid his head on his arm.

            When he woke, the fire had burned itself out to embers, and there was nothing left; not the leather jacket, not Dean, nothing. Just Sam, alone, wrapped up in a hoodie over a hospital shirt and sweats and Dean’s amulet warm against Dean’s heart inside Sam’s ruined chest.

            Sam sat up, blinking groggily, wiping the back of his hand across his eyes. The sky was overcast, threatening rain as Sam pushed himself to his feet and walked to the ashes, taking a handful and letting it run back through his fingers.

            He remembered Essex; standing on a bridge and watching the Draugr’s ashes drift into the water. Dean telling him, _We’re the stuff they make legends out of_.

            Sam didn’t feel like their legacy could go any farther than this, anymore.

            “Dean,” His voice curled like a spasm around the name. “Thanks. Thanks for everything. Thanks for…taking care of me. For going to _Hell_ for me.” He wiped his hand on his jeans and stared up at the sky. “Thanks for being the first face I always saw after one of those freaky Hell-visions. Just…thanks.”

            For a million other things he couldn’t say, hadn’t ever _needed_ to say, because with one look, Dean had known. _Dean had always known_.

            It was starting to rain.

            Sam left the copse of trees and stepped out onto the edge of the Grand Canyon, staring across the breathless expanse that ran like a scar through the heart of the state. Sam rubbed his chest, imprinting the amulet’s face into his skin.

            No more _us-against-the-world_ , no more cocky smiles, no more eyes finding Sam the moment he entered a room, just to make sure he was safe.

            Sam had never felt so alone.

            He swung the duffle bag over his shoulder and climbed into the vacant void of the Buick. And he drove away.

            The Grand Canyon wasn’t as impressive as he’d always imagined.

 

 


	9. Chapter 9

_Three Months Later_

_September 9 th, 2012_

_Walpole Motel, Walpole, Massachusetts_

 

Sam knew he was slipping.

It was small things at first; listening to a victim’s story and finding his mind wandering, thinking about other things. Ordering food for himself—he stopped ordering for Dean three weeks after he left Arizona—and then forgetting to actually eat, because he was too busy cleaning his guns. Only he’d forget he was doing that, too. He’d end up lying on his back, staring at the ceiling. Or he’d sleep.

Sam slept a lot.

He never stopped moving, not after he went to Bobby’s and saw the cubes of crushed metal that had once been the Impala, his and Dean’s home for decades. Sam got back in the Buick and drove, ditched it outside of Minnesota, and got back to hunting. Weak and shaky and still adjusting to his new heart, still adjusting to this life of _alone_ and _solitary._

Last time had been easier; last time, he’d had Ruby after just a few weeks, and the distraction of revenge to keep him going. But this time there was none of that, nothing but booze and cases to drown his senses, to drown his sorrows, and sometimes Sam would drink so much he’d have vivid dreams of Dean standing beside his bed and demanding, “ _Why are you doin’ this to yourself, Sammy?_ ”

 _You’re gone_. That’s the only answer he had.

The Hell-dreams got worse. Crawling across his waking mind, strangling him; Sam faltered on cases. Almost lost an ear when he went down mid-fight with a Daa’wa, one of Purgatory’s escapees that was mostly mouth and all appetite; he fell with Lucifer’s Hellhounds screaming in his head.

Mostly, Sam ran; he ran toward cases, toward the monsters some hunters were too terrified to face. He ran toward the fight and away from Dean, away from the emptiness the greeted him in every motel, at the end of every case.

He didn’t bother trying to bury it in sex. He just hunted. Hunted himself to the bone, until he had no choice but to drop into a bed at the end of a case and pass out for a few hours before he got a lead on the next one.

Sick of John and Bobby calling him, trying to find him, Sam shut his cell phone off after the first month, tossed it so they couldn’t track him, bought a new one. The calls stopped. The void of loneliness swallowed him.

And then there was the Bigbug.

The case took Sam up to Niagara Falls in the beginning of September, when things were unseasonably cold and he was coming close to a year since he’d gotten his soul back; since all the empathy had come flooding back in, all the feelings, and the _ability_ to feel, again. And Sam sat on a couch across from a terrified couple and their two-year-old daughter who told Sam, talking with her hands, that, “ _The Bigbug came froo my winow an’ try take my hair!_ ”

            She had the biggest, greenest eyes.

            And Sam couldn’t bring it into himself to care beyond the initial spurt of concern; because he was tired and he was hopeless and he felt like someone had tied him to the bumper of his car and dragged him from one end of the world to the other. But he knew he had to help, anyway; the husbands of fifteen missing women had turned up at the local hospital already, intoxicated with some venom that left them lucid for only a few days before the fever sapped the life out of them. And it was showing no signs of stopping.

So he tracked the Bigbug down.

            It wasn’t actually a bug, although it did look like one, a hard exoskeleton and big beady eyes inside of a semi-human face; it was another reject from the other plane, and it was targeting a very specific category of humans: adolescent and middle-aged females. And Sam swam his way into its lair, under a smaller offshoot of the falls, to find it in the process of laying its eggs inside one of the girls. The rest of them were strung across the walls of the cave by—Sam wrinkled his nose—cords of braided, human hair.

            The fight was bloody and drawn-out and Sam ended up with a slice across his back that almost knocked him unconscious with pain. He managed to kill the thing, with a bronze knife dipped into the water and smeared with the blood of one of the victims.

            But it left Sam shaken; because on the flipside of the case, he could feel himself slipping. He wasn’t himself, he didn’t care, he was just going through the motions. Somewhere on the road behind him, a part of him had shut down, had died. This was too much like the six months Gabriel had forced him to live with Dean in Hell.

            Sam drove the girls to the hospital, left them, and ran.

 Which was how he landed here, in Walpole. He picked the quiet small city because it was as opposite from Oregon and the Grand Canyon as he could find. And then he tucked himself into a corner between the bed and the wall and just slept.

It wasn’t all sleep; and Sam lost track of time. He’d wake up and throw up, even though there was no food in him. His brain registered in one of those split-second waking moments, that he was throwing up white foam and blood, and something wasn’t right. His back burned hot and cold; he wasn’t lucid.

And he knew it, because this time, when he woke up, Dean was sitting on the bed.

Sam jerked, scrabbling away, his back hitting the wall. “ _Dean_?”

“Heya, Sammy.” Dean’s head hung; he was staring at his hands, dressed in his leather jacket and Sam’s heart squeezed because Dean looked the same, _just the same_ , and Sam was ashamed because he wasn’t _Sammy_ anymore.

“How are you _here_?”

“Angels? God? Does it matter?” Dean snorted. “I’m _here_ , college-boy. Who needs an equation?”

“But…” Sam stammered. “I burned you. I made sure you were dead.”

Dean kicked his legs out in a sprawl. “Yeah, thanks for that. Nice to know you were thinkin’ about me.”

“Dean,” Sam whispered. “You were dead. _Really dead_. I didn’t have a choice.”

“No, you had a choice. You coulda brought me back!” Dean snapped, and Sam flinched, his brother’s loud voice battering his eardrums. Dean pinched the bridge of his nose and squeezed his eyes closed, continuing: “Did it feel good, Sam? Huh? Did you talk yourself into thinking I was in Heaven, riding clouds with the angels?”

“Where else would you be? Dean, you earned it. You _more_ than earned it.”

“Yeah? Well, apparently God didn’t think so, ’cause guess who I’ve been bunking with for the past, oh, thirty years?”

Somehow, it made sense, though some part of Sam was still confused. “No.”

“Our old buddy Luci turned me into a whole new freak, Sammy.” Dean’s head turned, his yellow eyes catching a striation of light from the bedside table. “And now you’re _all mine_.”

Sam floundered awake gasping, curling his arms around himself when he threw up. No one there to grab him, to clap a hand to his forehead, to tell him he would be fine.

With shaking fingers stickied with vomit, Sam pulled out his phone, and punched in the number.

He couldn’t make his heart, _Dean’s heart_ , slow down; couldn’t regulate his breathing. Glassy visions danced on the edges of his mind; Heaven and Hell, around and around in circles. Sam was drenched in sweat and he couldn’t think straight.

“This is John.”

Funny how that voice was the only thing that made him feel like he had enough strength left in him to speak:

“Dad, I need help.”

The phone slid out of his hand.

 

 

            It was dark when John pulled up outside of the motel.

            It had taken him ten minutes to get the trace on Sam’s cell phone, but longer than he would’ve liked to actually drive from Tennessee to Massachusetts on the skirts of a storm system that had been pummeling the Midwest for days.

            The Walpole Motel was the same kind of seedy digs John had always known his boys to stay in, had stayed in himself, but this one had an atmosphere of gloom over it that raised the hairs on John’s arms. He got out of the pickup he’d hotwired, keeping his shotgun braced at his hip, and walked straight for the room with the Prius out front.

            Because Dean had hated those cars; and leave it to Sam to pick a car that would’ve gotten his brother’s hackles up.

            The inside of the room was semi-dark, the light beside the bed clicked on; it smelled like a sewer, like blood and vomit and shit. John covered his mouth and nose with his arm and moved cautiously into the room, kicking aside a stack of books and an untouched duffle bag. “Sam?”

            A low moan from the other side of the bed had John dropping the shotgun and running, the smell no longer a factor.

            Sam was propped against the wall, his head rocking slowly from side to side, his eyes closed. The sight of him made John freeze; Sam looked like hell. Sunken cheekbones, skin pulled waxy and tight across his skull, wrists thin and hair filthy. He was wearing a flannel shirt over nothing, unbuttoned, the scar on his chest from the heart transplant standing out sharply, a brown line on his stained skin.

            John was kneeling in Sam’s waste and the contents of his stomach, spewed out over God-knew how many days. There was a jar of pills and a bottle of whiskey on the bed beside him, but John didn’t know how much they’d been touched.

            “Sam, Sammy, look at me.” John rested a hand on Sam’s cheek, turning his head down. He could feel the fever burning off of Sam’s skin, eating him from the inside out. Sam’s pitiful dark eyes locked with his, and Sam couldn’t, didn’t even try, to hide the fact that he’d been crying.

            “Dean?”

            John’s heart fractured. “No, son, it’s me.”

            “Dad.” Sam’s face distorted eyes squeezing shut, and John pulled him in close, let Sam get lost against him like he was nine years old again. “I miss him, dad, I miss him so much I can’t—I can’t—”

            “I know.” John looped a gentle arm around Sam’s shaking back. “Sammy, I know. It’s okay, son, it’s all right. There’s nothing wrong with missing your brother.”

            And then John felt it, with his hand sliding down Sam’s shoulders; a dip in his skin, his shirt sticking into it. John pulled the shirt down from one of Sam’s shoulders and his insides rearranged themselves.

            The gash was inches deep and festering; it looked like there were maggots or something else, something shrively white, crawling inside. Poison, it had to be, it explained the fever and Sam’s pallor. But what the _hell_ kind of monster—?

            John could’ve kicked himself; Sam had been chasing the same kinds of Purgatory spawn as John himself for the last three months. Who knew what he’d tangled with, or when? But it was more than John could treat alone in a dark motel room.

            John pulled back, gripping Sam’s face in his hands. “Sam. I need to get you out of here. Can you walk?”

            Sam’s bloodshot, bleary eyes searched his; he looked too young, confused. “I—I think so, yeah.”

            He got his feet under him, with John steadying him, one hand on his chest, but when John reached for the duffle bag, Sam doubled over, grabbing his arm.

            “Dad—dad, something’s—”

            And then Sam started screaming.

 

 

            It was a hospital again.

            It felt like it was _always_ ahospital.

            Sam felt different when he came around; not like a fresh heart-transplant patient, not like his chest had been crushed. But it was that acidic, crawling feeling he’d always had after drinking Ruby’s blood, with the demonic fuel pumping through his veins.

            His memory was hazy, and his vision cleared faster; Sam blinked at John, sitting beside his bed with his hands clasped and his chin wresting on his knuckles.

            “Hey, kiddo.” His smile wore a few days of sleeplessness, his eyes many more, and Sam felt instantly guilty.

            “What happened?”

            “You were poisoned. Some kinda monster. Almost did you in.”

            “Why does my chest hurt?”

            John’s features clouded. “You—had a heart attack, Sammy.”

            Sam’s guts lurched. “ _Did I ruin Dean’s heart?_ ”

            John looked like he wanted to laugh, in a broken way. “No. No, Sammy, no, your brother’s heart is just fine. Took a beating, but they’ve got you on some drugs and that should…that should help.”

            “Drugs? That work against a monster’s venom?” Sam raised an eyebrow, and that felt like it took some effort. It was weird to be sitting here, talking to a Shapeshifter, in a hospital room. And Sam had had a heart attack.

            “It’s a cocktail.” John said. “Whatever’s going on in there, it’s protecting your organs. For now. But it won’t last forever, Sammy, I gotta try and find out what did this to you. Try and find a cure.”

            So Sam could keep going, keep hunting. He blinked, and saw Yellow-Eyed Dean behind his eyelids, and it was almost too much.

            “Go away.” The words came out steadier and colder than Sam had meant them to.

            “What?” John sounded shocked. “Sam, not a chance. Not until I know you’re—”

            “Just get out!” Sam snarled, and the heartbeat monitor spiked, and he _fucking hated these machines_ , he _hated_ hospitals, he _hated_ feeling like half a person. He peeled his eyes open and saw John staring at him with true hurt in his eyes.

            And Sam _hated_ hurting him.

            “Please. I’m begging you, please, just…walk out that door, and don’t come back.” His voice wasn’t steady this time, and Sam knew his eyes betrayed his fear. His exhaustion. But he held John’s gaze anyway.

            Something shifted in John’s expression; from wounded and concerned to understanding. He got to his feet, brushing Sam’s hair out of his eyes. “It’s over, huh?”

            Sam nodded, jerkily, staring down into his lap.

            John sniffed long and deep. “I’ll call Bobby.” He leaned down and surprised Sam by kissing him on the forehead; something his dad hadn’t done since Sam was five. “You’re my boy, Sammy. I love you.”

            By the time Sam opened his eyes, John was gone. He scrubbed one hand across his face and let out a long breath; he knew it would be hours, if not more than a day until Bobby reached him.

            And all he had to do until then was to think.

 

 

“I can’t explain it. His heart should be on the mend. The drugs should be taking affect, even against a toxin that’s this unheard of. The drugs seemed to be stabilizing his system, and there’s no indication of a secondary infarction. But for reasons I can’t even begin to explain, sir…he’s dying.”

Bobby’s reply was frigid: “Define _dying_.”

“His vitals are steadily decreasing; oxygen output levels, heart-rate, respiratory functions are all declining. And he refuses to let us intubate.” The doctor paused. “We were hoping you could—um—talk him into it.”

“Do I look like some damned negotiator? If the man says he don’t want a machine breathing for him until you people can find an answer, then you better damn well keep it out in the hall!”

            Sam avoided Bobby’s eyes, plucking at a loose thread on the starchy white sheet, but he couldn’t help a slight smile as Bobby’s words sent the doctor, a tall, attractive woman in her late thirties, scurrying down the hall.

Bobby stepped into the room and banged the door shut, grumbling, keeping most of his weight off his left ankle. Sam hadn’t had a chance to ask how it’d happened, but he assumed that the injury, whatever it was, had been the primary cause in it taking Bobby three days to drive from Sioux Falls to Massachusetts.

Bobby pulled up the chair beside Sam’s bed and sat, elbows on his knees.

            “So.” He said.

            “So.” Sam echoed softly.

            “ _So_ , boy, doctor says it’s about time you started rallyin’. What’s the hold up?”

            Sam looked up, throat and eyes burning. “Dean’s gone, Bobby.”

            Bobby couldn’t hide the pain that flashed across his face. “Sam, you gotta stop beatin’ yourself up about that. I miss him, God knows I do, every minute of every day. Hell, can’t sit in my house for five minutes without lookin’ up, thinkin’ he’s gonna come chargin’ in to steal my sammich.” Bobby cleared his throat. “I will _not_ lose you too, you hear me? Now, your brother woulda wanted you to keep fighting, and that’s what you’re gonna do.”

            “I don’t know if I can.” Sam kept his eyes down. “Bobby. Dad’s gone. Mom’s gone. Now Dean, too?” He blinked, couldn’t fight the hotness in his eyes, let it spill out. Who cared how strong he was, anymore—or how weak? “And you’re not gonna be around forever, Bobby.”

            “Sam—”

            “After you’re gone, it’s just gonna be me. All alone. With my whole family dead.” He shook his head. “It’s not what I want.”

            “You keep fightin’ anyway, Sam! It was Dean’s _dyin’ wish_!”

            “And this is mine.” Sam cut him off. “And for once, I’m gonna stop caring what everyone else wants for me. I can’t do this anymore, Bobby. I’m done. Hunting. Fighting monsters. There are more hunters out there, like Key’s group out Japan. This is bigger than me and Dean. It always was.” He could feel the irregular thump-thump of his heart— _Dean’s heart_ —against his ribs, getting faster, then slower in bursts. “We did what we were supposed to do. We stopped the Apocalypse. We stopped Mohera. Now you’ve gotta let us go.”

            “Boy, don’t ask me to—”

            “Bobby.” Sam said, firm, but quiet. “I’m begging you to let me go.”

            Bobby stared at him, jaw shaking, brightness slashing across his eyes. “Kid, you’re all I got left.”

            “You lived for a long time before me and Dean, Bobby. I know you can keep going. You’re stronger than both of us.” When Bobby didn’t protest, Sam sat up against the pillows. “I’m the last Winchester alive, Bobby. It has to end with me.”

            Bobby dragged in a shaky breath. “I don’t know how you expect me to do this. Your heart’s half-broke as it is, kid, but I’ll be damned if I’m gonna waste you.”

            “Unhook the machine.” Sam said, swallowing down his fear. “Those drugs are the only thing keeping the poison from killing me, right? But it’s just temporary, it’s not a cure. So pull the plug. We can go back to your place.”

            “You’ll be in a world’a hurt, Sam. John told me the state you were in when he found you, whatever’s in you is eatin’ you alive. You take out the drugs, and that venom’s gonna burn your body from the inside out. It ain’t gonna be pretty.”

            “I’ve had worse. Demon detox, remember?” He winced as something pulled deep in his chest. “The first part’ll be the worst. I know, I watched other people die from this poison, Bobby. Once I get past that, I can handle it. I swear.”

            Bobby half-rolled his eyes, then stood up. “I’ll talk to your doctor.”

 

 

They drove back to the salvage yard under an open blue sky, the kind Sam remembered. In an old Mustang of Bobby’s, not half as sleek or impressive as the Impala, but good enough. Sam leaned his hand out the open window, making airwaves.

            “Took my phones off the hook for a coupla days.” Bobby said gruffly. “So we’ll have that house all to ourselves.”

            “Good.” Sam said quietly.

            Bobby looked at him sideways. “How ya feeling, Sam?”

            The lack of drugs was already starting to kick in; Sam’s limbs were tingling. “I’ll be fine, Bobby.”

            “What a load’a crap.”  Bobby muttered, reaching over to crank on the radio.

            A Bon Jovi song filled the cab of the car: Wanted, Dead or Alive. Sam looked out the window at the fields scrolling past, stark green against the blue of the sky. He listened in silence through the first verse and chorus, then the second.

            And he remembered.

            Cases. Car rides. These same roads to nowhere. A hundred places, a hundred times. To Hell and back. Fights in the Impala. Moments in the front seat when Dean would remind him what they were fighting for.

            Fingers tapping on the top of the window, Sam smiled slightly, and sang along.

            It was a long drive, but they made it one swing, Sam sleeping against the door for minutes at a time, trading off with Bobby when Bobby’s ankle needed a rest. They pulled up in the late afternoon and Bobby helped Sam inside, sat him down on the couch in the study, and pushed a tumbler of whiskey and some painkillers on him. Sam swallowed down both—couldn’t do any harm at this point. Bobby dragged out a mound of blankets and sacked out on the floor.

            Sam didn’t sleep; just laid there staring up at the ceiling, the hours ticking past on the clock on the wall.

            How many times had he fallen asleep in this house? As a kid, when John would drop them off—and later, whenever him and Dean had the time off. Trading off the couch. Sometimes they’d both end up on the floor, because Dean had a habit of rolling around a lot in his sleep. But always waking up, knowing the other one was right there. That as long as they were at Bobby’s house, they were safe.

            Sam closed his eyes, tucked one arm behind his head, and tapped in to the separate pains moving through his body.

            Before, when he’d first started hunting with Dean, the thought of dying had terrified him. Right up until the first time he’d died with Jake’s knife in his back. And when he’d jumped into the Cage—that’d terrified him, too. The only thing that had kept him from bailing out had been Dean. Right there. Trusting him, believing Sam would do the right thing. Knowing that, if his brother was strong enough to let him go, then Sam had to be strong enough to try.

            This time, there wasn’t any fear. There was just resolve; knowing that Bobby was going to be all right, even with Sam gone. That the time he’d spent trying to hold on after the battle, pretending he’d be all right—that was over. Bobby knew what was happening, what was really going on inside Sam’s head. For once, someone knew everything, everything he was feeling. And that made it bearable.

            When Bobby woke up a little after sunrise, Sam hadn’t slept. Icy blackness was creeping into his veins, keeping him wide awake.

            Bobby sat up, took a swig from the bottle beside him, and looked at Sam. “You okay, kid?”

            “I’m dealing.” Sam said.

            “I gotta run into town, pick up some things. You think you’ll be all right?”

            “I’m not gonna die while you’re gone, if that’s what you’re asking.” Sam joked weakly. “I’ll be fine, Bobby.”

            “Uh-huh. You _want_ anything?”

            Sam mulled it over. “Cheeseburger?”

            Bobby blinked rapidly. “You got it.”

 

 

            Bobby wasn’t gone long, but it was enough. Within fifteen minutes, Sam was sweating, the fire spreading from his chest through the rest of his body. No more morphine, no more drugs helping his weak heart— _Dean’s heart_ —to pump. It wasn’t like any other pain he’d ever known.

To distract himself, he walked the house. Going nowhere fast. Running his hands over the banisters, walking around corners where him and Dean had gone skidding, playing soldiers when they were kids until Bobby told them to stop before they wrecked his whole damn house. He stopped at the bottom of the stairs where Dean had chased him last Christmas, and stared up at the dark top. Where they’d met Castiel and his angelic dragoons, the night Balthazar had died.

And beyond that, the attic. His childhood safety, the place where he’d gone to hide, wrapped up in his hand-me-down clothes. And, after New Harmony, Indiana, where he’d laid under Dean’s leather jacket and stared at nothin, for hours, before they’d buried his brother.

That first time.

And all Sam wanted to do was go back up there, and die.

He got halfway up the stairs before the pain exploded through every inch of his body.

“Guh!” Sam tumbled to his knees, clutching the front of his shirt, smacking down hard on the stairs. Then just laying there, his breath stirring up dust motes.

The second greatest hunter in the world. Too weak to climb a flight of stairs.

That was where Bobby found him ten minutes later.

“Sam?” Bobby’s boots thumped across the hallway. “What the hell are you doin’? Idjit! You tryin’ to gimmie a heart attack?” Bobby grabbed Sam’s shoulders, sat him up and looked him in the eye. He paused. “You look like crap.”

“Thanks.” Sam puffed.

Bobby half-carried him back to the couch, sat him down and forced the cheeseburger into his hands. Sam’s stomach was rolling, burned to cinders by the fire inside of him, by the ache where _Dean’s heart_ thumped sporadically. But he capped it, shackled it while he ate his cheeseburger under Bobby’s watchful eye.

            As the hours wore on, the pain was harder to ignore. Like a hundred knives stabbing his body, like Hell all over again. Sam slipped in and out of sleep; once or twice he thought maybe he was screaming for his brother, before Bobby’s hand on his forehead lulled him back into a feverish sleep.

            Once, he woke, totally lucid, and met Bobby’s haunted eyes where Bobby sat his desk. He could feel the dark circles under his own eyes, the sweat streaking his face, his dry lips, everything. He felt wasted and hollow and burned out with the fire inside.

 “Bobby.” Sam said softly, voice breaking. “Please.” Every part of him hurt; chest, head, his limbs, everything. He just wanted to be done.

            “I know, kid.” Bobby said it like he could read Sam’s mind. And maybe, after all the years he’d helped raise them, taught them so much of what they knew—maybe he could. Maybe Bobby could see in Sam’s glassy, bruise-circled, pain-stricken eyes how shaky his grip on the world still was.

            Bobby levered himself out of the chair, limped to Sam’s side, and did something that would’ve made Dean gag but, maybe, it was all Sam had left anymore.

            Bobby sat on the edge of the threadbare couch, cradled the back of Sam’s head and pulled it against his chest, so that Sam’s breath was warm against Bobby’s neck. And he held him there like Sam was a little kid. So close they could feel each other’s heartbeats: Bobby’s strong and fast, Sam’s weak, and getting weaker.

            Sam closed his eyes, breathing in the familiar smell of Bobby’s Old Spice cologne, and Sioux Falls air. Comforting, familiar smells. Open air, tires ripping up the road. One case after another. “I’m tired.”

            “I know.” Bobby repeated, pressing his face into Sam’s hair. “Boy, I know it.”

            “Love you. Bobby.” Sam said, his chest tightening, shrinking to the size of a pinhead. The pain was distant, going numb.

            “I love you, boy. And I loved your brother. God knows, I did. Always will.”

            Sam smiled slightly, and it took all of his strength just for that, and to feel Bobby’s hand gently sweeping his hair away from his sweaty, hollow temple. “Last chance to…call me an ‘ _idjit_ ’. For all the stuff I—put you guys through.”

            Bobby let the silence stretch on until Sam could barely feel it anymore. “Sam?”

            “Mm-hmm…”

            “I forgive you, kid.”

            One last rusty, painful thump filled in the end of Bobby’s sentence as Sam sagged against him, head slumping onto Bobby’s chest.

            “Sam?” Bobby said jerkily, clenched teeth, body going rigid. His hand went still in Sam’s filthy hair. “Kid?”

            That monotonous flat line in his ears, inside of him, never breaking. The hollow ringing in his ears in absence of Sam’s breathing. The stillness of the chest that was close enough to his that Bobby could’ve felt it, if there was anything left to feel.

            Sam’s damaged heart— _their heart_ , his and Dean’s—finally giving out.

            Bobby’s fingers twisted in Sam’s hair, and he squeezed his eyes shut.

            The last Winchester had finally gone home.

 


	10. Chapter 10

_December 25 th, 2012_

_Singer Salvage Yard, Sioux Falls, Iowa_

First white Christmas in five years.

            Bobby Singer was sitting at his desk, drinking beer and flipping through one of the countless books about water spirits. John was lounging on the couch, scribbling in his journal—the real John Winchester’s journal, anyway. Hadn’t said anything, not a word to each other, in an hour. Pretty pathetic excuse for Christmas. Then again, not like there was much for celebrating. Not when they’d buried Sam three months ago, and Dean, six.

            The shock if it had wore off a long time ago; grief was still there, but it was the kind you could drown in booze. So it wasn’t the surprise of the century to Bobby when John had showed up soaking wet and shivering on his doorstep earlier that morning and asked to come in. He’d been coming around a lot since Sam had passed; made sense, what with him and Bobby being the real last of the family still around.

            The journal sailed across the room and plopped down on the edge of the desk, startling Bobby up. John straightened, rubbing the heel of his hand across his eyes and yawning. “Got any beers left?”

            “In the fridge. Help yourself.” Bobby tried to get back to reading, but it wasn’t an easy job. Finally gave in, slammed the book shut and looked up at John standing in the doorway, drinking his beer.

            John raised his eyebrows. “Any more leads on those new monsters?”

            “Mighta got something on a case out in New Orleans. Thing’s just plain weird, though. Most of it is.”

            “I’ll take it.” John held out his hand and Bobby ripped the top sheet off the pad of paper on his desk, passing it to him. John read down the line, nodded faintly and tucked it into his back pocket.

            Bobby folded his arms on the desk. “You sure you don’t need any backup? Don’t think I haven’t noticed you runnin’ yourself into dust to stop these things.”

            John half-smiled. “If I can pull a demon out of a human body with my bare hands, Bobby, I can handle this.” He picked up the satchel of weapons he’d dropped by the foot of the couch, then paused. “I never got a chance to thank you. For taking care of the boys.”

            Bobby shook his head gruffly. “I got a few grays along the way, but I wouldn’t’ve traded it for the whole damned planet.”

            “I know.” John slipped the satchel over his head and glanced out the frosted window. “Wonder if they made it. Upstairs.”

            Bobby pulled the journal closer and thumbed through the new entries John had added in. “S’what they deserve.”

            John swirled his beer and took a drink. “You think they’re together?”

            Bobby met John’s eyes, saw the real, fervent question behind that casual tone. “I sure hope so. Never saw ’em happy otherwise.” 

            John lifted the beer in a silent toast, finished it off and chucked the bottle into the trashcan. “I’d better head for New Orleans.”

            Bobby studied the journal, letting his thoughts play themselves out. Had a lot to think about. “Funny you mention that night in the cemetery.” He said. “’Cause Sam and Dean’s daddy was long dead and gone by the time they took out that Yellow-Eyed son of a bitch. Means no memories for the likes of you to download.”

            John paused with one hand on the doorway, tossing a smile over his shoulder. “I could just say I overheard how things went down, somewhere.”

            Bobby shoved his chair back and stood. “Don’t think so. We kept that whole thing real quiet, figgered it should stay in the family.” He drummed his fingers on the edge of the desk. “Funny that monsters aren’t the only ones who coulda seen the Mohera; any extrasensory critter can do it.”

            John’s smile broadened. “Bobby, you ever seen my eyes glow silver?”

Bobby debated on whether it was worth pushing it; decided there were some things in a life a man’s better off not knowing. “I’ll be in touch if I get any more leads. Now git, or I’ll your ass fulla rocksalt.”

John turned away with a two-fingered sideways salute, and Bobby heard the back door close behind him.

He sank back down in his chair, crossed his arms behind his head, and just listened. His house felt empty and desolate, too much like a graveyard after those two had died. Bobby’s old heart had found a place for sounds like brotherly banter, beers clinking together, Dean banging around under the Impala outside; or how about the TV going, books flipping open and shut. Too much that got cut off with them gone.

First Christmas in years without Sam and Dean Winchester felt more like a funeral than any kinda celebration. He remembered leaving his back door unlocked just so those two could show up any odd hours, if they needed a place to crash or hide out or do a little sleuthwork while they were recouping from one thing or another.

Maybe some part of Bobby had believed they were endless, like all the things they hunted. ’Long as there was a fight, there was a Winchester to do it.

Bobby leaned his head down, studying the clutter on his desk, the half-buried note from Sherriff Mills peeking out from the book he’d been flipping through. Bobby pulled it out and gave it another once-over, had to be fifth time he’d done it in a day.

            Looked like the Sherriff’d written it fast, before she could change her mind. Little invitation for some turkey and mashed taters at her place, mini-Christmas feast and a rerun of _It’s A Wonderful Life_. Bobby figured, two people who’d lost their families, probably shouldn’t spend the holiday season alone. Hell if Bobby knew what to say to her, though. Social Butterfly he wasn’t; he had a bigger habit of shoving monsters through meatgrinders in front of nice ladies.

            Bobby rubbed a hand across his eyes.

            ’Course, Dean woulda teased him from here to Kingdom Come. _He-hey, Bobby’s got a girlfriend! You getting a little sidewinder action there, Bobby? She’s a fox, don’t let her get away, old man_.

            And Sam would’ve pounded Dean’s foot into the floor and given Bobby one of those winning smiles that turned girls’ knees to mud and woulda made him a true-blue lawyer. _She’s great, Bobby. Just go have dinner with her. We’ll hold down the fort_.

            And they woulda kept at him until he got his lazy ass up, and did it.

            Groaning, Bobby grabbed his jacket off the back of the chair, stuffing the note into his pocket. He shoved his arms into the sleeves with a glare for the empty room. “You two are a coupla pains in my ass, you know that? Idjits.”

            And they woulda said, with that same saucy, rebel grin that made them brothers: _Yes, sir_.

            With the first smile on his face in three long months, Bobby Singer let himself out of the house, locking the back door behind him.

            A wintery draft blew through the cracks around the window, stirring the pages of John Winchester’s journal, filled with all things monster, demon and supernatural. There were still blank entries left, gaps to be filled by hunters’ knowledge in years to come.

            The wind flipped it back to the beginning.

            To the picture of the Winchester family, tucked in there by Dean after the first time they’d gone home to Kansas after the fire. A sentiment from a world that had never been, from a life that wasn’t theirs, hadn’t been Sam’s life or Dean’s life no matter how hard they’d tried.

            But they’d drawn a gun to destiny’s face, taken fate into their own hands, and somehow they’d built a life out of all of it. A strange, broken, bleeding life that sometimes hadn’t been any bigger than each other. But through a sprawl of people they’d saved on hundreds of cases over nearly thirty years, the life they’d never had was woven into dozens more.

            Sam was wrong. It didn’t end with him.

            In everyone they’d ever saved, ever helped, ever loved…

            The Winchester legacy lived on.

 

- _Chuck Shurley_

 

* * *

 

_Carry on my wayward son._

_There’ll be peace when you are done_

_Lay your weary head to rest_

_Don’t you cry no more_.—Kansas

 

 


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